It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an abandoned house in possession of notoriety for being haunted, must be in want of young boys seeking adventure. So, in kind, is the poetry of T. S. Eliot. It continues to attract curious intruders more than a century later. Many literary adventurers are brave enough to scale […]
The Year of the Dragon: An Homage to Southern Gothic and Flannery O’Connor
It was during the 2011 release of their fourth full-length studio album, The Reckoning, when I discovered the music of NEEDTOBREATHE. They had just finished a two-year tour promoting their 2009 album, The Outsiders, and were coming into their own as an Americana-style rock ‘n’ roll band. At the expense of being weirdly personal, I […]
Words Make Us What We Are in the World
Ultimately through our own use of words, we come to be what we are in the world, for good or bad… Through the concert of heart and mind tuned by true words, we may move beyond our individual, separate aspirations and become aware that we hold humanity in common; so then we have a common—that […]
Skills Pay the Bills
It is not uncommon to hear someone condemn liberal education as being a financial bust, an exercise in futility toward the goal of gainful employment. After all, skills pay the bills—literature and poetry don’t. Cartoonist, Steve Breen, epitomizes this modern cynicism toward the liberal arts and humanities in a 2012 frame for San Diego’s Union […]
Another Primer on Christian Humanism
One of the failures of thought among some of the modern Reformed is the tendency of that some to absolutize the biblical vision for God’s glory. That is, this school of thought asserts the drama of world redemption was played out for God’s glory alone. Understood rightly, this is absolutely true. However, the redemption of […]
The Sound of Sputum
The voices have reached a fever pitch. They’re no longer just faint static or the hum of a radio left playing in the background; they’ve grown from that to indistinguishable murmurings fading in an out of earshot to the constant dull roar which now occupies the foreground of every facet of life. Whispered and shouted—and […]
On Modern Health and Fitness Culture
Nothing can make you believe we harbor nostalgia for factory work but a modern gym. —Mark Greif I’m writing this post on Labor Day even though you won’t be reading my words until long after the sun has set on the Central Labor Union’s annual national festival for affirming the glories of factory work and […]
Don’t Smile Until Christmas
To heed or not to heed the old adage, “Don’t Smile Until Christmas!” That is the question. Likely, you’ve heard this familiar advice sometime in your teaching career and wondered if it was sound or even possible. You may be asking yourself, Should I really hide my human side and keep things “all business” until the first […]
My Hope for Exploring and Teaching Christian Humanism
My hope for exploring and teaching Christian humanism is that it will revive an interest in the humanities amongst contemporary Christians and transform our understanding of the significant influence Christian humanism has had on Western society. In the modern world, it is often purported that there is a conflict between the Church and the Academy. […]
Human Beings First
In a recent podcast interview I was asked to explain the difference between Christian Humanism and “straight up” Christianity. I don’t recall exactly how I answered the host, but in short, I asserted that true humanism stems from Christianity, particularly as it is expressed in the incarnation. This is because the incarnation was a miraculous […]