Category: Christian Worldview
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heavenly lies
Alex Malarkey, the boy who wrote “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” came clean this week and said his book is full of malarkey. It never happened. He said he just wanted attention, which is not unusual for a six-year-old boy. Here are five thoughts. 1. Give credit to the boy for owning this.…
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unbroken
I just watched the movie “Unbroken,” which surprisingly is not about Cleveland’s record of futility (fifty years this week!). When I left the theater I learned that the University of Michigan had hired a new football coach. Michigan’s AD announced that “our guy came home.” Lebron did the same thing this summer. So this should…
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dueling carols
Yesterday we sang two Christmas carols with opposing views on redemption. Joy to the World rightly proclaims the goodness of creation, the tragic destruction of sin (“no more let sins and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground”), and God’s plan to save the entire earth, “far as the curse is found.” This is my…
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do dogs have souls?
Today’s New York Times reports that Pope Francis has once again said something controversial. He consoled a boy whose dog had died by saying, “One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.” The Times added, “Theologians cautioned that Francis had spoken casually,…
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pace and preaching
My family watched “Father of the Bride,” the Steve Martin sentimental comedy from 1991. The movie was still funny, but less than I remembered. Mostly because it seemed slow. Some scenes lingered too long, without changing camera perspectives. Dinner conversation was reflective and took time to develop—true to life but a bit hard to watch.…
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what can brown do for you?
I don’t have anything to add to the national conversation on race, but here’s how I see it. I don’t think I truly appreciate the cloud of suspicion and harassment that black men experience. This fall one of my students, a large black man, was late for class. When I asked where he was, he…
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contingency
Our seminary family is pleading with God for the life of Kawika Hughes, a baby born last week to our student, Keoni, and his wife Andrea. Kawika was taken five weeks early because he came down with the enterovirus. Last Tuesday doctors were giving him no chance of survival, but by Wednesday afternoon his kidney…
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Working for Jesus
I wrote an essay on work for The High Calling, which you can read here. The High Calling turns out encouraging and theologically informed essays on work every week. I was turned onto it by Bob Robinson, who happens to live in my hometown village of Hartville, Ohio. It’s unusual to find someone who has…
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just stop it
Tomorrow night Nik Wallenda is going to do it again. He’s going to walk a tightrope between two skyscrapers in Chicago, and just to make it exciting, he’s going to do it blindfolded. I couldn’t watch last summer when he walked across the Grand Canyon, and I won’t be watching this time. Even if he…
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ceremony vs. reception
TIME magazine has an interesting piece on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission conference in Nashville. This paragraph caught my attention: “Russell Moore, president of the ERLC, offered a nuanced approach to the practical challenges of changing sexual ethics. Moore said he would not attend a gay friend’s wedding ceremony because that would involve participating…
Mike Wittmer 