Mike Wittmer

What I think. What I know. What I think I know.

  • fear and faith

    Another thing I learned while researching The Last Enemy is that it’s not wrong to be afraid of dying. Jesus was. His death contained unfathomable terrors, and he sweat blood as he braced himself for what was to come. Our deaths are infinitely easier, but we may still learn from the cross that fear is…

  • what I learned about death, part 1

    I promised I would share a few things I learned while researching The Last Enemy, and the first comes from Stephen Prothero’s book, God Is Not One. Prothero explained how each religion attempts to solve a different problem, and the unique problem that Christianity solves is death. Here is an excerpt from The Last Enemy:…

  • spring break

    My family and I returned last night from a wonderful week with my parents in Florida. I blogged once last week to make it look like I was still around, but actually I was finding shark’s teeth at Blind Pass, floating Chinese lanterns at Siesta Key, and meeting my Mennonite cousins who winter or live…

  • Why a book on death?

    My last two books have addressed consecutively the topics of hell and death, so I guess I’m mired in my blue period. I wouldn’t say I’m totally depressed, but my next project may be a history of the Chicago Cubs. The idea of writing a book on death occurred to me while watching Tom Brokaw’s…

  • the last enemy

    Today is the release of my book on death, The Last Enemy: Preparing to Win the Fight of Your Life. I kept the book small, with short chapters full of humorous and inspiring stories, so it would be enjoyably read by anyone. And since we’re all going to die, I think we all need to…

  • leap day

    In fifth century Ireland, women grew tired of waiting on their slacker men to propose marriage. St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick, who said that “single women could put a ring on it” every leap day. That is not a direct quote, but it captures the gist of his capitulation. Single women from Bridget to…

  • the assembly

    Jim Samra, pastor of Calvary Church and author of The Gift of Church, spoke to my class this week on the church. His main point was that the Greek term for church, ekklesia, which means “assembly” rather than “called out ones,” is deeply rooted in the Old Testament. God cut his covenant with Israel on…

  • mainstreaming homosexuality

    Last night I witnessed another significant step in our culture’s embrace of homosexual practice. You can tell a minority group has achieved cultural power when it unapologetically ridicules another minority group. And last night the homosexuals of Modern Family took aim at Appalachians, apparently the one remaining group that even enlightened liberals enjoy mocking. In…

  • Elijah’s doolittle

    Continuing the theme of Elijah, I am intrigued by Barth’s comment that Ahab’s great sin was passivity (CD IV/1, 456), and I wrote up an Our Daily Journey post about it. I wonder about lumping heretics with Nazis under the broad heading of evil, but 1 Kings 21:25 does say that of all the evil…

  • these are the days of Elijah

    Zach Bartels, a former student and the passionate pastor highlighted in Why We Love the Church (by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck), recently loaned me a copy of his first novel, 42 Months Dry. I didn’t get to it for a while, mostly because I treat fiction like my treadmill—I know it’s good for me…