Desiring God has graciously posted a piece of mine on their blog called “Putting Off Cynicism.” The piece is really a synthesis of observations about my own heart over the past few years. Every metaphor, description, counteragent, and prescription is something that has been (and continues to be) relevant to my own heart and perspective each day. I am a cynic, and I need Jesus very badly. I hope that my fellow cynics who love Jesus find helpful tools here... Read more
We’re always multitasking. As I write this, I’ve got seven things on my mental backburner. Just read an e-mail. Just checked my phone for a text (it didn’t come, and my phone would have buzzed if it had). There’s something scary about focus. It’s easy to stack seven or eight tasks, one on top of the other, as a stopgap between us and a besetting anxiety. I think that that this anxiety is a fear of an encounter with ourselves... Read more
It’s difficult for me to read Christian-life-type blogs from the middle-runners in Christianity today. I think, “I should be having these insights,” or “I should be able to see through the shallowness of this generation’s unbiblical notions of spirituality.” And I am ashamed that I have uncritically imbibed and embodied them. I think that this feeling of shame, however appropriate to the material, is not right. It has its foundation in a lie. The entire world of Christian blogging, to... Read more
The Westminster Theological Journal has published my review of Valérie Nicolet-Anderson’s monograph Constructing the Self: Thinking With Paul and Michel Foucault WUNT 2/324 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012). It was a fun read, and a fun review. Nicolet-Anderson gives us another book that deeply explores the intersection of philosophical psychology and exegetical theology. The review is published in WTJ 75, no. 2 (2013): 431-433. Read my review here. Read more
(Summary: Read my new article here). I wrote a paper in the Fall of 2010 for Dr. K. Scott Oliphint‘s class “Introduction to Apologetics” (AP 101) at Westminster Theological Seminary. The original assignment was to read one article in the book The Impossibility of God, an anthology of atheistic articles, edited by Michael Martin, attempting to demonstrate contradictions in classical formulations of the doctrine of God (thus, proving that God does not exit). I chose Matt McCormick’s article “Why God... Read more
Recently, Camden Bucey, Jonathan Brack, and I sat down on Reformed Forum to discuss my WTJ article “Analyzing the Apostle Paul’s ‘Robust Conscience’: Identifying and Engaging the Psychological Concerns of Krister Stendahl’s Inceptive Article.” In the interview, we explore the historical, philosophical, and theological connections between psychology and the New Perspective on Paul, and how a theology of union with Christ can inform constructive dialogue between psychology and theology. Listen to the interview here. Read more
Over a century ago, Ivan Pavlov published his infamous volume, which we are all familiar with through “Pavlov’s dogs,” The Work of the Digestive Glands. Building on this study, Pavlov spent his life trying to understand how, while functioning as essentially biological machines, our bodies process the external world – distinctively external to the bodily machine – and are effected by external stimuli. “For example, although food, through its chemical and physical properties, when placed in the mouth evokes the... Read more
“In fact, it has been remarked by some that Hobbits only real passion is for food. A rather unfair observation, as we have also developed a keen interest in the brewing of ales, and the smoking of pipe-weed. But where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet and good-tilled earth. For all Hobbits share a love of things that grow.” –J. R. R. Tolkien In circles of our faith, there are often rewards given for taking everything to... Read more
The Journal of Psychology & Theology was gracious enough to publish my review of Thomas Nagel’s recent work Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Read my review here. Also, if you’re trying to budget your time, James Anderson‘s recent review of the same book on Ref 21 is a much more worthwhile read than mine (follow him on twitter, too). Seriously, Anderson slices and dices like no one else can. I just summarize... Read more
The question of “recovered memories” often carries with it a (often harmful and misguided) stigma of fabrication in conversations about abuse trauma and its effects. Many ask “Why 20 years later? Did it really take that long just to get the courage to come forth about these things?”[1] Such a question betrays, at a very fundamental level, a complete lack of understanding of trauma and its effects. For some, yes, it did take twenty years. And that is a greater... Read more
Paul C. Maxwell
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