CBMW and Thoughts on “New Wave Complementarianism”

Last updated on: May 8, 2013 at 2:07 pm By Owen Strachan

Over at CBMW, I just wrote in response to a new and interesting development in complementarian theology. Below you’ll get a sense for what’s brewing: Recently a brand-new conversation began among complementarians. Wendy Alsup wrote a post called “A New Wave of Complementarianism” that met with an enthusiastic online response. Many took note, and key leaders weighed in, including Kevin DeYoung and Thabiti Anyabwile. Any discussion on complementarianism is inherently interesting and important to me, and so this one has had my attention. I’ve... Read more

The Story of Mikio Okada, Who Protected His Daughter

Last updated on: May 6, 2013 at 11:18 am By Owen Strachan

A few months ago, my friend Bart Gingerich passed on a story that stopped me in my tracks. It gave account of Japanese father Mikio Okada, who died while protecting his nine-year-old daughter from a ferocious snow storm. I just wrote about the story for Desiring God. Here’s a swatch: Sometimes in life, there is a moment that crystallizes the deepest realities of this world, that brings, as the novelist Wendell Berry has said, a revelation. Sometimes ordinary people have... Read more

A Deeper Beauty: On the Fragility and Promise of Daughters

Last updated on: May 3, 2013 at 7:19 am By Owen Strachan

This post is cross-posted from CBMW’s Manual channel (Twitter feed here). Earlier this week I wrote a piece for CBMW’s Manual on the “smokin’ hot wife” references you sometimes hear in evangelical churches. I realized today that I should have addressed another dimension of this trend: the daughters who hear this language in churches. Let me first say this: many of the men who would use “smokin’ hot” language to describe their wives love the women in their lives, whether... Read more

Should Christian Men Call Their Wives “Smokin’ Hot”?

Last updated on: April 30, 2013 at 8:31 am By Owen Strachan

I just wrote my first piece for the CBMW Men’s blog, Manual (see the brand-new Twitter feed here). It’s an interaction with the fairly common practice among younger evangelical men of saying that their wives are “hot” or, if you’re really going all out, “smoking hot.” Below is an excerpt. I try to pull out the helpful and less-helpful in this conversation: [F]or one man to take a decided, indeed lifelong, interest in one woman is a grand and holy reality.... Read more

Know Your Christian Rappers: a Christianity Today Breakdown

Last updated on: April 29, 2013 at 1:44 pm By Owen Strachan

Just had the opportunity to tackle a fun assignment for Christianity Today: profile several of the most prolific gospel rap artists. Cat, meet catnip. CT just published the piece, which is a sidebar to Russ Moore’s cover story on the Christian hip hop movement (presently behind the paywall). My shorter piece covers Lecrae, Trip Lee (photo), Shai Linne, Propaganda, Beautiful Eulogy, Alex Medina, and Tyshane. Here’s an excerpt: Lecrae’s versatility is reminiscent of Jay-Z’s, though like much of the contemporary gospel... Read more

The 23-Year Game of Tag

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 1:04 pm By Owen Strachan

Sometimes you read things that defy the ordinary nature of life. Here’s one: a group of friends has played a game of tag for the last 23 years. It’s regulated–I kid you not–by a legal document. Please, avail yourself: Mr. Dennehy and nine of his friends have spent the past 23 years locked in a game of “Tag.” It started in high school when they spent their morning break darting around the campus of Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane, Wash.... Read more

How Do You Solve Poverty? Make a Toy Block!

Last updated on: April 23, 2013 at 11:32 am By Owen Strachan

This is a marvelous 3-minute video that shows, in bite-size form, how poverty can be addressed and even overcome. The standard Western answer to the problem of poverty today is to throw scads of money at it. That’s well-intentioned and perhaps may have some positive short-term effects. But it seems a far better approach in the long-term to create wealth where there currently is none. That means creating jobs through the ingenuity of the human imagination and the workings of... Read more

Manly Character Matters: A Son Remembers His Fallen Father’s Purity

Last updated on: April 22, 2013 at 11:26 am By Owen Strachan

I just read one of the most encouraging commendations of a father’s character I’ve ever encountered. Grant Castleberry, Associate Editor of the CBMW Men’s Blog, Manual, shared this in a poignant post on his father’s legacy. Captain Charles Castleberry died nearly three decades ago. He was a fighter pilot. Though Grant was left without a father, testimony of his dad’s character has endured. Please read the following and be deeply stirred to live life as a man and a person... Read more

The Evangelical Adoption Movement Is Sinister

Last updated on: April 18, 2013 at 3:29 pm By Owen Strachan

Or so indicates the PR for the about-to-be-released book by Kathryn Joyce entitled, subtly, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption (PublicAffairs, 2013). This is a book evangelicals who care about adoption should know about. Joyce just wrote a shocking piece for Mother Jones that followed the tragic tale of one family’s adoptive practices. I suggest you check out Jonathan Merritt’s rigorous response, which shows that Joyce has cherry-picked her anecdotes and cast evangelical adoptions in a... Read more

How to Defeat Spiritual Laziness

Last updated on: April 18, 2013 at 12:24 pm By Owen Strachan

I just started a monthly column for 9Marks. This is going to be fun, because I love 9Marks, and I love writing. For the first column, I covered the topic of “spiritual laziness.” How can we tackle it? I addressed the problem–treated in a number of places in Scripture–from a pastoral standpoint. The article will hopefully be relevant not only for pastors, though, but for any Christian who (like me) sees spiritual lethargy as a temptation and wants to defeat... Read more