Month: August 2022
Threnody for a Good Man
Mat Feltner died at a hospital in Lincoln this week. Obviously it wasn’t Feltner himself — he lives nowhere outside of the mind of Wendell Berry, the pages of his novels, and the imaginations of the many thousands of us...
Schmemann’s Vision of a Sacramental World and the Reformed Tradition
Alexander Schmemann is a window into a theological world much different than typically encountered in American evangelical circles. With a faith firmly grounded in the Russian Orthodox theological tradition and speaking determinedly into late-modern Western life, Schmemann has intrigued many...
Unpacking “Realism”
There is a fascinating ambivalence regarding the term “realism.” On the one hand, many claim to be realists since the alternative would be to be, well, unrealistic. Political realism built its modern brand during the interwar period as the sensible...
The Danger of Enchanted Enclosures
The Substance of Things Hoped For: A Novel by Tom Noyes, Slant Books, an imprint of Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Oregon: April 26, 2021, 270 pp., $25 Experiences of committed Christian community can transform lives for the better. Robust, mature,...
Saturday Night Lights
This piece was originally published in 2015 with Fare Forward. I’m republishing it here ahead of Saturday’s kick off and because it is no longer online elsewhere. Any Nebraskan can describe the scene to you: It’s a fall Saturday in Lincoln,...
Tradition as a Way of Life: Yoram Hazony’s Winsome Defense
Professed conservatives have long been at a disadvantage relative to their liberal and social democratic opponents and seem continually to lose ground to these ideologies claiming the progressive label. This is because the principles of liberalism and socialism are straightforward...
Speech Without Accountability: Reckoning with Anonymous Christian Trolls
Our church invited Aimee Byrd to speak on Sunday morning several weeks ago. It wasn’t the first time. It won’t be the last time. While we only ordain men, we also allow non-ordained individuals to teach our congregation periodically—including women....
What Augustine Might Say to Someone Deconstructing
In my early twenties, I dove deep into questions and doubts about the Christian faith. After hundreds of Sundays, countless youth programs, and a few years at a Christian college, I began dismantling many things I had always assumed. Today...
An Interview with Isaac Adams on “Talking About Race”
Isaac Adams serves as lead pastor at Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and is the founder of United? We Pray, a ministry devoted to praying about racial justice. The following transcripted interview revolves around his book, Talking About Race:...
Living By Kairos Time in a Chronos World
Lewis Mumford wrote in his 1934 classic Technics and Civilization that “the clock, not the steam-engine, is the key machine of the modern industrial age.” Due to the mechanical clock, “time-keeping passed into time-serving and time-accounting and time-rationing.” Mumford explains...