The Battle for the Mind
Conservative Christians are often perceived by the world as backward, bumbling purveyors of ignorance. Some even go so far as to describe conservative Christians as willfully ignoring plain facts in order to retain outdated views. These representations are painful, sometimes infuriating, though perhaps not completely unfounded. Even though Peter commanded us to always be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason...
The Ghosts of Students Past: Ayden Seminary and Eureka College
Arthur C. Clarke opened the forward of his 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey by stating, “Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the number by which the dead outnumber the living.”[1] Clarke’s statistics may be skewed due to his evolutionary calculations, but the main thrust of his thesis rings true. Behind every man and woman now living stand the ghosts of those who have gone before them. The same applies to...
Fighting on the Wrong Ground: Epistemological Missteps
I realized I was getting nowhere with this guy. It was my first year of youth ministry and one of my students, sly grin and all, had just asked how I knew the Bible was true. I tried to explain that prophecies have been fulfilled, lives have been changed, science has never proven the Bible wrong, and, like G.K. Chesterton I found that the Bible explained everything in my experience so well as to be inescapably true. However, my...
Augustine on Desire and Music
The role of desire has received much attention in recent Christian thought. Largely this turn stems from James K. A. Smith’s writings. Smith wrote in 2009, “[W]e are primarily desiring animals rather than merely thinking things.”[1] He contends that we are primarily lovers and not knowers, thus churches should aim to shape and form the congregation’s desires by appealing to them. He intends to draw the congregant into a gut-level,...
This Is a Mystery: Marriage, Sex, and the Trinity
After explaining the proper relationship between spouses to the Ephesian Church, the Apostle Paul makes an intriguing statement: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). Through the centuries, this passage has spawned deep reflection. The seventeenth century poet John Donne wrote several rich poems that dig into the correlations between marital relationships, our relationship...
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