The art of small talk is not easy for some personality types. For other personality types, it’s the long conversations that are difficult. But one of the patterns of conversation that almost all of us can relate with, or fall into, is story-matching. When we listen to someone else’s story (the storyteller) and then share […]
Christian Humanism Series
On Friendship, Classics, and Christianity
I was a youth director once upon a lifetime ago. Most of the young people I worked with are now parents with their own high school and college-aged children. In hindsight, I was too young, too spiritually immature—just too immature, period—for the work I was doing then, but I was “on fire,” as we used […]
Not Its Own Cause
This post is partially inspired by the photo I’m posting here. The photo was taken at the SLC airport and is part of Delta’s “shared humanity” marketing campaign. This particular ad is striking because it speaks to the normalization of that which is unnatural and abnormal, something that in literature is symbolized by using the […]
Don’t Read My Blog Every Day!
…if you don’t want to. As a matter of fact, you may have only signed up for my Saturday Substack Newsletter, Rumbling Toward Heaven, and are now wondering why you’re getting something from me in your inbox on a Monday. Well, this is a courtesy email to let you know that I will be publishing […]
The Historic Tradition of Christian Humanism
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible—even intrinsic—with the practice of historical Christianity, representing a real philosophical union of authentic Christian faith and classical humanist principles made explicit by the Incarnation of Christ. Christian humanism is interested in the affirmation and flourishing of human life and […]
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 Meaning of Christian Humanism
Since most readers immediately associate “humanism” with secular or atheism, I suppose this wildly incorrect assumption needs some unpacking. No matter how commonplace the modern understanding of humanism has become, I would contend that the secularism or atheism so many associate with humanism is “cut-flower”—the blossom of humanism plucked from its organic stem, Christianity. After […]