Philosophical Fragments
I realize that it’s me. Not something a part of me, but me. Read more
I realize that it’s me. Not something a part of me, but me. Read more
I once belonged to a church where one of the pastors, it emerged, had been abusive toward his wife. It got ugly, in part because of racial issues. It was a Chinese church and the pastor’s wife was Caucasian. Some felt the fate of their beloved church was threatened by the wife’s decision to act (by going with her kids to a battered woman shelter) in ways that made the situation public — and, angry, they told her that if... Read more
Roger Ebert is dead: the film critic who filled the needed role of curmudgeon. He loved movies so much he was willing to hate them when they betrayed either the craft or the viewer. He allowed epics like Star Wars to be no more than they were, but respected what they were. He was no film snob and so he was a rare trustworthy voice on whether a movie was lowbrow but still fun. With Siskel, Ebert introduce my generation... Read more
Atheists don’t exist. by Kyle Idleman Phew, I’m glad that’s out there. Now, before you head to the comment section to remark on my ignorance, hear me out. When you subtract the religious language, worship is the built-in human reflex to put your hope in something or someone and then chase after it. You hold something up and then give your life to pursuing it. If you live in this world, then, sooner or later you grow some assumptions concerning... Read more
I’m very grateful to Ken Hagerty – who has had an extraordinarily varied career, from serving in two Presidential administrations to organizing businesses to pressing for policy change to helping to pilot Renewing American Leadership – for the following guest post: * Sex and Western Civilization By Ken Hagerty In his Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel, American scientist Jared Diamond recounts a conversation he had with an inquisitive native leader in New Guinea. “Why is it,” the... Read more
When the biblical argument is made that human sexuality was designed for male and female, and the Bible condemns homosexual relations, one of the responses for the defense is that those portions of the Bible that appear to condemn homosexual relations are not really condemning homosexual relations in general but only a particular kind of gay sex — say, gay rape or gay sex associated with idol worship. Robert Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, responds to this argument in... Read more
C.S. Lewis was a certain Christian but an uncertain Platonist. A comparison to his contemporary A.E. Taylor, author of a magisterial commentary on Timaeus, illuminates the debt Lewis owed the Platonic dialogue. Taylor was a Christian, an apologist, and (with somewhat less reason than he might have thought) he was proud of his prosody. Lewis was the better writer, though no poet, and the greater apologist (though Taylor’s Does God Exist? is underrated), but sometimes lacks Taylor’s rigor and consistency.... Read more
A Guest Post by Lela Gilbert: A rather startling headline appeared recently in Lebanon’s Daily Star: Iraqi Christians fear fate of departed Jews. The story, by Salam Faraj, went on to report: After 10 years of attacks on Iraqi Christians, Monsignor Pios Cacha wonders if the ancient community’s days are numbered. ‘Maybe we will follow in the steps of our Jewish brothers,’ he says. The priest’s reference to Iraq’s Jewish population — once a thriving community numbering in the tens... Read more
A guest post from Mark Tooley: * It’s now been 10 years since the launch of the Iraq War. And some religionists have exploited the anniversary as a time for national regret and spiritual repentance. Former McCormick Theological Seminary President Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, in a Washington Post online column, represents many of these voices by condemning the Iraq War as a “moral, fiscal and geopolitical disaster for the United States,” which “broke the rules of war by ignoring them or so completely ‘re-defining’... Read more
Brent Dusing is the founder and CEO of Lightside Games, which seeks to make computer games (so far they’ve mostly been Facebook-based games) that involve players in the stories of the Bible. Their Journey of Moses and Journey of Jesus have both been phenomenally successful. Now they’ve partnered with the History Channel’s Bible miniseries to create a hidden-object game — called Light the Way — that families can enjoy alongside the miniseries. I don’t take these things lightly. I believe... Read more
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