If you read this blog, you’ve read about the Together for the Gospel conference. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click the link and browse their website. T4G, as it’s called, is a conference that encourages pastors to build their ministries on nothing but the gospel, and to find unity with those who do the same. I went to T4G two years ago and loved it. If you are a Christian pastor or interested layman who loves the... Read more

In evangelical circles, you can always tell who has been to public or private school and who was home-schooled. The simple test is this: does the person mock others? Is he sarcastic? Ironic? That will usually answer your question for you. I’ve applied this homemade test lots of times and found my hypothesis proven on many occasions. There are exceptions to every rule, but I have found home-schooled students to be kinder, less manipulative, and more earnest than students from... Read more

So said Oliver Wendell Holmes after his time in the Civil War. Holmes fought with the Massachusetts militia before he became a justice of the Supreme Court. His words ring true in my ears today–not because I am fighting, but because I am reading Stephen Ambrose’s Citizen Soldiers, and thus feel as if I am fighting. I am a military history devotee. I have not yet read a book that more vividly communicates the experience of war. Ambrose ran into... Read more

Just check out University of Illinois-Urbana journalism professor Walt Harrington’s 2002 book The Everlasting Stream. I recently read it and enjoyed Harrington’s meditation on hunting and masculinity. Having grown up in a rural area, I found that Harrington understood well the dynamics of groups of hunting men. As one who gravitates more to reading than killing, fiction than fishing, I came away from the book with a better understanding of why men get together and kill animals. Sure, it’s about... Read more

Donald Williams has the answer. In a deft, balanced piece in Touchstone magazine, he lays out his answer. I encourage you to read this piece and mentally digest it. It’s worth thinking through. Williams notes the lack of attention paid to art by evangelical theologians and then comments: So it is not surprising that, with no such emphasis coming from its leaders, the popular Evangelical subculture seems even more addicted to pragmatism in its approach, as a brief trip through... Read more

– Matthew R. Crawford – Pop songs are often a window into the hopes and desires of a culture. It is always interesting to listen to songs that come along that present a utopian vision of the future. This phenomenon is nothing new. Just think back a few decades to John Lennon’s “Imagine,” a song with a haunting tune but a frightening description of the perfect society. As Christians, being aware of such songs, especially songs that get a lot... Read more

– Matthew R. Crawford – What does it take to make a community? One of the best thinkers alive today trying to answer this and related questions is Oliver O’Donovan. He attempts to answer this question most directly in his book Common Objects of Love. Although not an easy read, O’Donovan’s book rewards careful and repeated reading. In keeping with O’Donovan’s field of expertise, political theology, the stated goal of Common Objects of Love, is to answer “the question of... Read more

– Matthew R. Crawford – Recently I’ve been reading some of Nietzsche’s first work, The Birth of Tragedy. It is not his most significant book, but it does contain elements that are central to his philosophy. Nietzsche’s central argument is that Greek tragedy arose from a combination of two impulses – the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The Dionysian element is the untamed force of intoxication and war, the opposite of the restrained rationality of the Apollonian. I thought that I... Read more

– Matthew R. Crawford – As a consequence of recently joining a history book club, yesterday I received a free copy of The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, a compendium of the group of texts that launched the modern scholarly interest in Gnosticism. Key to Gnosticism is the disavowal of the body. The body is merely a prison for the soul, something to be transcended. As many others have noted, this view is at odds with historic Christian orthodoxy which affirms the... Read more

– Matthew R. Crawford – Today is a very special day in the Crawford household. Our first child, Violet, is turning one year old. I thought that I would share with you one of my reflections upon this milestone event. First let me give a little background. I’m sure that my experiences thus far in seminary mirror that of many of my fellow students. I am taking enough class hours to maintain full-time status. I work a few part time... Read more