Good films about fatherhood seem rare, or at least rare-ish. In honor of the day, here are five quick takes on some films that made me think about fatherhood in fresh ways. Father Soldier Son Most of these are going to be light, but I’ll add something very heavy for balance. This feature-length documentary began life as a New York Times essay on the life of a single father in the military, then became a short film, then expanded into something... Read more
I enjoyed this new three-way conversation from Unherd with Justin Brierley, Liz Oldfield, and Alex O’Connor, moderated by the always capable Freddie Sayers. Justin is a friend who will be known to many of you for his work with Unbelievable?, Alex O’Connor is a young atheist with a growing Internet platform, and Liz Oldfield is a Christian communicator/coach/consultant with lots of thoughts on how to reach post-Christian “nones.” Broadly, everyone was discussing whether or not there’s a “Christian revival” percolating in a... Read more
A couple months ago, I tweeted out an awful story about a young man who committed suicide after going on a course of citalopram, an anti-depressant. He received this prescription over the phone, and within a week, his anxiety had spiked dramatically. Unable to cope, he took his own life. I had forgotten all about this story until a few days ago, when a young Christian reader of mine sent a message reminding me of it. He told me he... Read more
Fans and friends are mourning the sudden death of Mandisa Hundley, an American Idol alum who went on to have a successful contemporary Christian music career. Police are currently investigating cause of death. Her publicist hasn’t released any details except that she was “found dead in her home” in Nashville. She was only 47 years old. These kinds of deaths are always deeply sad, but the fact that Mandisa was a Christian artist makes her case even more wrenching. She... Read more
“Today in my Harry Potter class @Baylor, we had a hard and necessary conversation about J. K. Rowling and her hatred of trans-people.” You could be forgiven for thinking this was a parody tweet, but it is, alas, quite real. Professor Greg Garrett doesn’t just teach literature at Baylor, he’s the Hanks Endowed Professor of Lit and Culture, an Hon Canon Theologian no less, with assorted fiction and non-fiction books to his name. From his Amazon author page, I learn... Read more
This just in: Sovereign Grace music is gay now. Thus declares Pastor Armen Thomassian, who I’d never heard of until everyone started dunking on a tweet where he complained about the “weird effeminate vibe” during worship at the recent Shepherds Conference. Yes, the Shepherds Conference. The one hosted at John MacArthur’s church, featuring keynote addresses from guys like Phil Johnson and Steve Lawson. Really. Worship leader Bob Kauflin was the chief culprit here, according to Thomassian, though he went on... Read more
It’s been a number of months since I updated this blog. The reason for that is simple: I was doing better writing and making more money elsewhere, in contexts where I can offer a better reader experience. But Patheos, quite reasonably, expects me to pull my weight if I’m going to take up their Internet real estate around here. Accordingly, I recently got the dreaded “your column is in jeopardy” email, with instructions to write a couple of new posts... Read more
I try as a rule to avoid protracted debates on Twitter (sorry, I just refuse to call it X). But recently, I broke my own rule. The context was this long tweet by Jared Moore, a Southern Baptist pastor who’s recently released a new book expanding his dissertation on lust and the doctrine of sin. It’s called The Lust of the Flesh, and it’s not available wherever books are sold, but anyone interested can buy it directly from the publisher... Read more
On his Substack, former Spiritual Friendship contributor Chris Damian has added his own commentary on my recent writing around gay Christianity/Spiritual Friendship/”Side B”/etc. It’s a long Stack, so I don’t really have time to hit every point, but one point in particular needs to be addressed upfront, and that’s an accusation Chris makes around my recent very brief mention of the Catholic writer Daniel Mattson. Mattson was an early Catholic critic of Side B work, and I mentioned his name... Read more
Eve Tushnet has written a response to my new First Things piece on all things “gay Christianity” at her Patheos blog. Is it too corny to say, “Ah, Tushnet, we meet at last”? Anyway, we meet at last. As I’ve said, I actually like Eve’s clarity in this area, which means I don’t have to sift through layers of muddle to get to her point—which, more often than not, I find dangerously false, but at least it’s clearly dangerously false! I... Read more
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