In doing all of this reading on character, I’ve been clued in to a key development in postmodern culture: the preeminence of feelings. Feelings have displaced truth as the primary mediator of society. The shift leaves us clueless as to what is actually good for us but all too aware of what we want. We live in a psychotherapeutic age in which self-esteem is the cardinal, and perhaps only, virtue. How one feels is the most important matter to ascertain.... Read more

Good things happen when you read. I read for a living these days, and I cannot tell you how beneficial it is. The effort necessary to extract ourselves from the television is worth everything. When we actually sit down and read books, things happen. More specifically, knowledge happens. And knowledge is an incredible thing. Once you acquire a thirst for knowledge, you cannot go back. The practice of discovering truth about the world hooks you, and you have to read... Read more

Thanks, BC, for your feedback on my reviews. You are a trenchant thinker and I appreciate your words. And it seems you have a bit of the closet sociologist in yourself, as well! Today’s book is a little less scholarly but every bit as potent a read as the other books. It’s Jean Twenge’s Generation Me, a study of the Millenials, who Twenge terms “GenerationMe” due to the unrelenting narcissism and self-interest of my generation. Twenge, a psychology professor at... Read more

I have always had a love for sociology. That statement can mean alot of things. Let me say what it does not mean. I do not like at all the Marxist foundations on which the discipline was built, nor do I like much of its contemporary academic manifestations. However, I do like very much the practice of observing culture, which is what some good sociologists do. One such person is David Brooks, a writer for the New York Times who... Read more

Back to book reviews. I’ve recently read through Allan Bloom’s “Closing of the American Mind” and was struck by its incisive nature. Put simply, the book is one long expose of the American academy. Bloom, a University of Chicago political philosophy professor who passed away nearly fifteen years ago, wrote this thundering text to address the weaknesses of the postmodern university, with its ironclad commitment to personal autonomy and institutional liberalism. First things first. Bloom sees the university almost as... Read more

The book reviews will be posted intermittently over the next month. Having just concluded a research chapter on the culture’s attitude toward sex, I found Proverbs 7:6-27 striking. The chapter is a unique one, for the author uses a dramatic scene to make his point in place of a more, well, proverbial tone. The power in these words is palpable. It is made all the more so because we slowly observe the young man destroying himself. Do you ever feel... Read more

BCS, thanks for the suggestion about exploring the nature of beauty. Though it would be fascinating to address this question, I want to direct your attention elsewhere. For a while now I’ve wanted to quickly talk about some books that I’ve read recently that are culturally important. For the next little while I’m going to do so. The first book is I Am Charlotte Simmons. Written by Tom Wolfe, published in 2004, the book is a 700+ plus page fictitious... Read more

Well, the finals are over and I’m back in the swing of things. Good to be back. I want to suggest based on my previous post that we Christians take every opportunity we can to point out to the outside world that we, like them, love beauty. We are not concerned only with truth claims. We are of course concerned first and foremost with truth claims, but this does not mitigate our appreciation of beauty. When we have established this... Read more

It is clear that our culture has fallen in love with beauty. We are an aesthetic culture, and it is not truth that captivates us but beauty. We who are in Christ also love beauty. We do not love beauty for it’s own sake, of course. We love it because God Himself is beautiful and because He is the creator of beauty. He has planted it here amongst the bleakness of earthly life. We may thus celebrate beauty and connect... Read more

It being finals week and all, I will post soon. It will be a busy week, so stay with me. Topic to be discussed ASAP: connecting with people through the search for beauty in the world. Read more