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Patrick MillerFeaturedChurch

Holographic Spurgeons and AI Sermons - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

At a fête for one of evangelicalism’s largest online media outfits, a colleague shared how he asked GPT-3, a language AI, what the Bible says about transgenderism. The AI produced a cogent theological explanation with Biblical citations. A senior editor […]

Jake MeadorChurchCommunities

The Barnacle Problem - Commonplaces

Back in my marketing agency days, we’d sometimes talk about the concept of “barnacle SEO.” What that meant is that you basically had to find ways to attach your client or brand to some larger entity and profit off of […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Networks v Institutions - Commonplaces

One of the primary difficulties facing local churches right now is the emergence of large online networks which shape and disciple church members in ways that are conducive to the growth of the network but not conducive to the health […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Haunted by Mars Hill(s) - Commonplaces

Years ago I remember my pastor giving a sermon on forgiveness and bitterness. I was in college, still recently removed from a fairly nasty church situation, and, well, I was struggling a lot with bitterness. After church, I was talking […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Alternatives to Culture War - Commonplaces

One of the lines we have taken for a long time at Mere Orthodoxy is a skepticism about culture war strategies and motifs in Christian public speech and Christian political strategy. (This is one of the first pieces I wrote for […]

Jake MeadorChurch

The People Who Don't Ask Questions - Commonplaces

Jemar Tisby: How can a group of people be so certain about topics that are so complicated? How can they say with so much certainty, “The Bible says…” when so often their interpretations have led to injustice and oppression? The […]

Jake MeadorChurchBook Reviews

Schaeffer's Legacy - Commonplaces

I am a former L’Abri student. Every time I visit Rochester, MN, I make a point of visiting Dr. Schaeffer’s grave. He’s something of a spiritual grandfather to me. My most treasured book in my home library is a copy […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Charlie Dates on Trusting God - Commonplaces

This’ll preach: The text says now Jesus asked them these questions to test them. He knew what he was gonna do. Jesus says ‘where can we buy bread that we may eat?’ You know what I think Jesus is looking […]

Matthew MillinerFeaturedChurchJournalJournal 3

The Mega Church Born Again - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

I arrived in the Thessaloniki airport and passed by the customs office, its door casually propped open, and saw everything I had come to Greece to avoid: a framed reproduction of Warner Sallman’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed American Jesus, testimony to the […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Mark Sayers's "Sin Chart" - Commonplaces

From a recent Rebuilders episode: A frame for understanding how different belief systems see and interpret the world. First, five diagnostic questions: What is the purpose of life? What is sin? What is the world? What is its attitude toward […]

Cameron ShafferFeaturedChurchEvangelicalismFormation

Our Spiritual Malaise - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

“There are some people [that] tell us that they are tremendously interested in the gospel as a point of view, as a Christian philosophy…Christianity is to them a matter of tremendous interest and they believe and proclaim that if only […]

Casey ShuttFeaturedCultureChurch

Distrust's Thicket and the Life of the PCA - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

In the fall of 1998, I added what was at the time a pertinent, hot off the press book to my college dorm bookshelf alongside classics like Lewis’s Mere Christianity and Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. The book, Francis Beckwith and […]