Archive for the 'Culture' Category
An excerpt from Dr. Mohler’s special to the Wall Street Journal:
In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.
Read the whole thing here.
I remember everyone singing, “American Pie,” on the school bus growing up. We had a long ride. And, it’s a long song. Though I think we only knew the chorus so we just sang that over and over again. Once BTO put out “Takin Care of Business,” we were on to that.
In any case it was of interest to me to listen (while organizing my study) to Russell Moore’s podcast on the Cross and the Jukebox and his reflections on the meaning of the song, “American Pie.”
Listen here. And, yes, you do get to hear the song.
If nothing else, listen to the Star Wars version at the end!
I called on one of our older people today at a rehab center which is also a nursing home. Pop music was playing over the sound system and the first song that caught my attention was John Lennon:
Imagine there’s no heaven . . .
It didn’t seem to me like “Imagine there’s no heaven” was a popular thought at the nursing home.
The next song spinning on the nursing home juke box was, “I had the time of my life,” and that one didn’t look like it was going to climb the nursing home charts either.
I understand that people loved I had the Time of My Life in Dirty Dancy. Imagine went platinum for all I know. But, neither song works very well in the nursing home. I didn’t interview the people sitting about in wheel chairs, but my guess is that not a lot of them are dreaming that there’s no heaven. Nobody looked to be having the time of their life. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey were nowhere in sight.
So. I decided to go with the Apostle Paul rather than a meditation on John Lennon. I read aloud to the person I was visiting 2 Cor 4:16-18, “Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all . . . For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Tim Challies consider qualities that many now see as signs of virtue.
I don’t want to keep talking about Rob Bell. Honest. And in this post I am only going to touch on him on the way to something else. I think the uproar about his view on hell has helpfully illustrated what passes as virtue in the evangelical world today. As I have read some of the controversy, reading particularly from those who have taken his side, I have seen evidence of three characteristics that seem to pass as virtues today. In some parts of the Christian world, these are now embraced as Christian virtue: doubt, opaqueness, and an emphasis on asking rather than answering questions.
Doubt
Doubt has become a virtue while boldness and assuredness have become marks of arrogance. The only thing we should be sure of is that we cannot be sure of much of anything.
Read the rest here.
G.K. Chesterton famously said that, “Tolerance is the virtue of people who don’t believe anything.” Here Carson explains how the connotation of “tolerance” has changed over time.
HT: Z
After a great deal of “Mac Evangelism” on the part of some friends, I recently walked the “aisle” and bought a Mac. So far I’ve been very pleased.
And now there is going to be a Verizon Iphone. Wow.
All of which is to say that Andy Crouch’s recent contemplation of the Gospel of Steve Jobs was timely for me, recent Apple convert that I am.
Andy Crouch:
Steve Jobs’s gospel is, in the end, a set of beautifully polished empty promises. But I look on my secular neighbors, millions of them, like sheep without a shepherd, who no longer believe in anything they cannot see, and I cannot help feeling compassion for them, and something like fear. When, not if, Steve Jobs departs the stage, will there be anyone left who can convince them to hope?
Read the whole thing here.
Dr. Russell Moore of Southern Seminary is introducing a new podcast in which he interacts with popular music.
Today is the official launch of my new weekly podcast “The Cross and the Jukebox: Roots, Music, and Religion.” The first episode, which looks at Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light,” is up now and available here in this post. Every Friday morning, there will be a new conversation about a particular song or artist, and what it can tell us about our neighbors and their often simultaneous longing for and rebellion against the gospel.
See more information here.
Or, take a minute to watch a recording which is the subject of his first podcast.
Ross Douthat has written a concise and profound column for the New York Times. In it he points to one of the most important books of the year, James Davison Hunter’s book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
I am sorely tempted to share Douthat’s conclusion because it so concisely summarizes the question we wish to address here in Stillman Valley. But, I’ll make you click through to read it. Douthat deserves the traffic.
Christmas is hard for everyone. But it’s particularly hard for people who actually believe in it.
In a sense, of course, there’s no better time to be a Christian than the first 25 days of December. But this is also the season when American Christians can feel most embattled. Their piety is overshadowed by materialist ticky-tack. Their great feast is compromised by Christmukkwanzaa multiculturalism. And the once-a-year churchgoers crowding the pews beside them are a reminder of how many Americans regard religion as just another form of midwinter entertainment, wedged in between “The Nutcracker” and “Miracle on 34th Street.”
These anxieties can be overdrawn, and they’re frequently turned to cynical purposes. (Think of the annual “war on Christmas” drumbeat, or last week’s complaints from Republican senators about the supposed “sacrilege” of keeping Congress in session through the holiday.) But they also reflect the peculiar and complicated status of Christian faith in American life.
Read the rest here.
HT: Denny Burk
