I wrote this article for the TWU Today Newspaper back in the spring of 1996. The topic was a timely one for me as I had just interviewed Mark Emery as my subject for a class I was taking in culture change. In the class we were assigned the task of interviewing somebody who was aiming […]
culture
Many Christians think the world is getting worse. Are they right?
Christians from my evangelical tradition tend to be predisposed to view the world in pessimistic terms as if the trajectory of history ensures a spiral into moral chaos and decadence. This is largely due to the influence of premillennial eschatology which predicts precisely this decline prior to the supernatural return of Christ. When you adopt that […]
Chocolate Cake, Chicken, and Other Metaphors of Truth and Error
Back in 2009 when I was doing the interview circuit for my book Finding God in the Shack (a theological exploration of the themes in Paul Young’s best selling novel The Shack) I had an interesting exchange with radio host Bob Dutko. Dutko was not a fan of The Shack and viewed it as including […]
When Conservative Christianity Wore Aviators
The other day some old (or “vintage”) copies of His, the (to me heretofore unknown) magazine of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship were left out at our seminary for anybody interested in documents from 1970s conservative Protestant Christianity. I was immediately taken by this cover for the November 1977 edition. A pair of mirror lens aviator glasses […]
82. Is the Church Making Us Stupid? A conversation with John Stackhouse
“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” And so begins Mark Noll’s 1994 book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. It’s been twenty-two years since Noll shot that provocative salvo across the bow of conservative Christian subculture. So how are we doing now? At first blush, […]
Five Things You Could Have Done For Halloween
Today I decided to compile a list of five things you could have done yesterday instead of trick or treating. (Next year I’ll try to get ahead of the curve by offering some suggestions before Halloween.) 5. Watch the documentary Hell House which features one of the many fundamentalist/evangelical alternatives to the seasonal haunted house. […]
The point is to become holy. Happiness comes later: Christianity Against Culture Part 2
Imagine that the eager young campers arrive for their first day of summer camp. The campers believe they are at the camp to have fun. Unbeknownst to them, however, their parents have sent them there to remediate their behavior. You see, this camp deals with delinquent youths, and while it aims to offer fun, the […]
When you are so free that you’re not free to choose evil
The 59-Second Apologist podcast on the topic “Will we have free will in heaven?” elicited the following comment from Mike D: “If the only possible choices in a Heavenly moral dilemma are all morally perfect ones, then you’ve basically just neutered the concept of free will into meaninglessness, because all possible choices are equally valid […]
Defending the sharper edge: A modest defense of my “God’s not Dead” review
The other day I heard from a reader who took issue with my scathing critique of “God’s not Dead.” He didn’t take issue with the objections I raised to the film per se, but he did object to the unremitting negativity in which I couched the critique. His concern was borne by pastoral concern for those […]
47. The Devil’s in the Music: On growing up evangelical in the 80s
I grew up reading Hal Lindsey books. Beginning with The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970), Mr. Lindsey had a string of bestsellers throughout the 1970s. And each of those books promoted a popularist form of dispensationalist Christianity that read the predicted future of the book of Revelation in the unfolding events of the evening news. […]
Is it elitist to lament the popularity of superhero movies?
My lament over the enduring popularity of superhero movies (“Who can save the box office from superhero movies?“) was met by some incredulous responses. Chief among them was “Bryan L” who offered a stinging rebuke: “Who checks box office numbers? And who cares? Go see what you want and stop fretting that others don’t have […]
One person’s wrestling with tales of mass murder is another person’s belly laugh
I owe this quote to the prolific Edward T Babinski who commented in response to my article “The Bible and Violence: A Biblical Bibliography“: “Randal, One person’s ‘wrestling’ with tales of mass murder in their ‘holy book’ is another person’s belly laugh.” I really enjoyed this quote because it concisely summarizes a village atheist (or village […]
Will there be deafness in heaven? What about cancer?
Chapter 8 of my book What on Earth do we Know About Heaven? (Baker, 2012) addresses the topic of the Deaf in heaven. In the chapter I point out that we need to distinguish between being deaf (an auditory deficiency) and being Deaf (a member of Deaf culture). Deafness in the latter sense is not […]
The Cool Pastor
JR Forasteros is a pastor, blogger and pop culture junkie. This is his website. http://jrforasteros.com/ Now why should you visit his site? Here are a few reasons. 1. Rethink “Pastor” What comes you mind when you hear the word “pastor”? Try it out. Write down the immediate associations that spring to mind, no matter how bizarre. When I […]
