Jesus
You’re Not Alone When You Doubt Your Doubts
If You’re a Doubter, You’re Not Alone Peter Schjeldahl is an art critic who has been writing for The New Yorker since 1988. In 2019 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Some weeks later, in one of the first pieces he wrote following the diagnosis, he describes the cancer as “rampant.” Almost flippantly, he adds, “No surprise. I’ve smoked since I was sixteen.”&nbs...
Changing the Mind of a Sheep
I like historical fiction—books, movies, TV. I especially like the kind that has a plot based on some kind of shadow agency, secret society, or cabal that is mysteriously at work in the story yet lurk in the background. The Illuminati. The Culper Ring. The Trilateral Commission. All kinds of stories include groups like these meddling in world events, often for the sake of power. The identity of th...
Reclaiming the Holidays
During the holiday season, I often get one of two troublesome feelings. First, I think that the whole month-plus is too hectic and too busy. The season feels overscheduled with events and get-togethers that are good and joyful, to be sure, and which I would probably miss if they didn’t happen. But in my more reflective moments, a deeper sense that something is missing creeps into my experience of ...
Being a Good Person?
“I’m a good person.” “I try to live a good life.” “Everybody’s got their issues, but X is one of the good guys.” We hear these kinds of statements constantly. We might even say them ourselves. But what does it mean to be a good person? What does our culture have to say about it? I checked Twitter to see what came up the most commonly. People were saying things like “being a friend,” “having good m...
Call Me Old-Fashioned
Call me old-fashioned, but I think technology is a little overrated. Yes, we can have pretty much anything we want delivered to us without even putting on pants. Yes, we don’t have to go through the hassle of making real friends when we can easily connect with people online. Yes, we don’t even need to know where we’re going before we get in the car. But just because we have unlimited power at our ...
Peace
You may have come to this article wondering, “Where can I personally find peace?” If by that you mean “How can I get bad crap to stop happening in my life,” unfortunately, the answer is “Nowhere.” Nobody’s found a pause button for life yet. If you do find it, let us know! We’d like to use it too. But maybe you don’t mean that. Instead you mean, “How can I continue to live my life and still find re...
Breaking News?
“Breaking news.” I don’t know about you, but I find myself increasingly unable, in a networked world, to figure out exactly what that means. A gunman in France holding people hostage. The President’s latest tweet. A vote on a budget. The scores from the NCAA tournament. They are all accessible online. Because I’m a journalist (or that’s my excuse anyway), I have a multitude of news apps on my phon...
Who is Jesus?
Trying to describe Jesus is…difficult. I know him, but not in the usual way, where we’ve met face to face and had many long conversations in ordinary situations. In fact, I haven’t seen him face to face—not yet, anyway. And we’ve had many conversations, but they aren’t of the “Which sandwich would you like to get today?” variety. Nor can I clearly quote what he’s said to me in the same way I might...
Faith
What do Christians mean when they talk about faith? Not Simple Confidence First, it’s not the same thing other people talk about when they say things like “you’ve got to have faith,” or “Just have faith and everything will turn out all right.” In those cases, people seem to mean a kind of generic confidence or hope—a sense of determination that we WANT things to turn out well, and therefore, myste...
Jesus and Battle Scars
Years ago, when I was a young, naïve Christian teenager, I found myself in a lengthy discussion about faith with a non-Christian classmate. This particular classmate, who eventually became a very good friend, asked a lot of challenging questions about God, Jesus, and the Christian faith. By the end of the conversation, I came to the conclusion that he just thought too much to believe in the Christ...
Christmas and Comic Book Heroes
I’ve never been much of a comic book reader. I have, however, enjoyed many of the comic book-based movies from DC Comics and Marvel that have been popular in the last 10 years or so. The popularity of these movies, which seems to drive Hollywood toward making more and more of them (perhaps not always good ones), makes me wonder why our culture is so interested in these films. Add to the superheroe...
Rest
Gotta go to work. Gotta get the kids picked up. Gotta get dinner…meeting tonight …Why did you wait till 8:30 to tell me you needed that tomorrow? Out we go again…Kids finally in bed, thank God, now I can get to that paperwork… It can’t be THAT late already? Better set the alarm LOUD, I’ll never get up in time tomorrow… Most of us don’t get enough rest. We are a world of underslept, under-relaxed,...
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