The Hole in Our Soul Care: Searching for a Road Forward for Pastoral Care
Early in his book The Logic of the Body: Retrieving Theological Psychology, Matthew LaPine comments that, unfortunately, “there is a path out of the church that runs through the counselor’s office” (p. 36). As a Christian and a counselor I...
In Praise of Reading Aloud
It felt a bit awkward at first, a group of friends in their mid twenties sitting around in my library in an old Capitol Hill row house. We had all brought our copies of various Tolkien, some with a well-loved...
Easter Hymns
He is risen indeed! This high holy day calls for reveling in the glories of the best Easter hymns. Scroll to the time stamps to read the lyrics of the three hymns that Matt, Alastair, and Derek discuss in this...
The Danger of Respectable Christianity
Since its first season premiered on Netflix in 2016, The Crown has garnered attention from viewers, critics, and from the members of the royal family whose lives it portrays. The series’ fourth season, which was released late last year, has...
The Church Amongst the Counter-Institutions
I watched The Social Dilemma far later than most people not living under a rock. I expected a serious documentary that forecasted serious consequences with a tone of (even more) serious urgency and fear to drive the point home. If...
I Am a Unit of One
After Jiang Qing married Mao Zedong in 1938, Communist leadership informed her that to join the Communist movement, she would need to submit her will to a work unit. Qing, who before her marriage to Mao was an aspiring actress,...
A Shot Off the Mark: Reviewing Christakis’s “Apollo’s Arrow”
The most interesting part of Nicholas Christakis’ new book Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live is, unfortunately, its title. The book was mostly written in August 2020, published in October 2020, and...
Beatitudes: “Those Who Mourn”
Continuing their series of discussions of the Beatitudes, Alastair, Derek, and Matt ask about mourning. What is the role of mourning in the Old Testament? Does our culture allow us to mourn properly? Is there joy to be found in...
Sin for Its Own Sake? The Theft of the Pears and the Divine Image in Augustine’s Confessions
The complex recounting of the “theft of the pears” in Book 2 of his Confessions is often distilled into Augustine’s famous evaluation of the act: “I simply wanted to enjoy the theft for its own sake, and the sin” (nec...
Covid-19, One Year On, Pt II: The Limits of Politics
One year ago today, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US passed 85,000, surpassing China where the virus had begun, and giving us the unenviable distinction of being #1 in the world. Today, America still holds that...