The Archive

Every essay.

Joseph HonesckoFeatured

Orthodox Beauty in the Face of Religious Abuse: Women Talking’s Generous Depiction of Christianity

If there were an award for getting audiences to live out the title of a film, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking would win in a landslide. The recent Academy Award winner for Best Adapted Screenplay has accomplished what good film–and good […]

John CarpenterBibleFeatured

When the Therapeutic God Isn't Sufficient

There was blood everywhere. The dead child – a baby of about 20 weeks gestation – just delivered, lay at one end of the table. The nurse took the body away. My wife, at the other end, laying in anguish […]

Jake Meador

Remembering a Kind Man

I first came across Tim Keller’s name around 2005 or 2006. I grew up in the kind of church that thinks John MacArthur is a liberal and so I was doing the old millennial version of deconstructing pretty hard by […]

Jackson GravittFeatured

The Sin of Curiosity

Medieval theologians think that you should stop being curious. This confuses us: Despite our common axiom that “curiosity killed the cat,” modern people typically see curiosity as a virtue. If a person does not ask questions and feel a drive […]

Jake MeadorFeaturedFormation

The Doom of Choice

Choice is one of Tolkien’s great preoccupations in The Lord of the Rings. He is fascinated by the existential challenge that confronts one at certain moments in life. I do not think they come often. You’re presented with two options. In […]

Mark KremerFeaturedCulture WarCurrent Politics

Fidelity or Financial Security: A Choice Facing Lincoln's Faith-Based Nonprofits

“Soft Totalitarianism”, the term coined by Rod Dreher for non-governmental control over individuals and organizations, is rearing its head more frequently and perniciously in a multitude of sectors of American life. One expects to find cancel culture, extreme DEI initiatives, […]

Dave StrunkFeatured

The Case for Ditching Your Smartphone (from Someone Who Has Never Owned One)

“If I had been born five years later I would have begun in a different world, and would no doubt have become a different man. Those five years made a critical difference in my life, and it is a historical […]

Stephanie BennettFeaturedFormation

Jeanne Guyon: Learning to Pray in the Digital Age from an Imprisoned Mystic

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) discovered a particular discipline of prayer in which she could inhabit the “peace of God in the very midst of oppression and intense hardship.”[1] Her autobiography and books of Biblical study are […]

Jake MeadorFamilyBooksCommunities

The Neo-Liberal Feminists are Boring

I had a couple people ask about my thoughts on some of the pushback against my thread last week, particularly as it relates to Dr. Robinson’s essays here. There are two separate issues so I’m going to try to take […]

Collin SloweyFeatured

Prelapsarian Politics and Postlapsarian Polemics

Five years since the publication of Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed sparked a dialectical war among religious conservatives over their Lockean heritage, the cannons haven’t stopped firing. To the contrary, the war is expanding to new theaters.

Josh BriscoeFeaturedhealth

Help My Unbelief

The doctors say she’s dying, but everything looks much the same. A plastic tube continues to supply every breath, various fluids continue to drip into her veins, her legs remain swollen, and an eyelid hasn’t fluttered in days, not even […]

Joshua HeavinFeaturedChurch

On Taking Small Children to Church

Regular church attendance is probably not convenient for anyone. Consistent and whole-hearted participation in the divine liturgy, an active work of service and attentiveness to God and others, a demanding labor beyond passive observation as an audience, is not something […]