1 john on Entertainment

There’s undeniably a dark side to restless ambition, however. You can see it in dramatic fashion in the documentary  Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop , which follows the comedian on tour after he left the To...

Richness in the Slapstick I don’t know about you, but when I think of insightful, theologically rich content on Christmas , I don’t naturally start with blockbuster films. And no, I’m not referring ...

Some years ago when radio was still a primary source of entertainment, a French dramatist was commissioned to write the script for the debut episode of a Bible study radio series. For the most part, ...

I met a man who watches The Lord of the Rings movies every night. When he told me this I pushed back: “Every night?” He said that when he gets off work he goes home, fixes his dinner, turns on the m...

Martin Lindstrom observes: When people viewed images associated with the strong brands-the iPods, the Harley-Davidson, the Ferrari, and others-their -their brains registered the exact same patterns of...

It is possible also to come at Christianity from a rather different point of view as well, seeing it as something not too difficult but too simple for us, too basic, something to be apprehended theref...

We have been created and redeemed for the eternal ecstasy of an interpersonal immersion in the triune God, seeing infinite Beauty face to face.

The final word is love.

Katja, our seven-year-old granddaughter, stepped in it, as they say. She had doggie droppings on the bottom of her tennies. Not just one foot, mind you, but both. Her mother, Maureen, suggested she le...

Gracious God, we are called to be a joyful people, giving thanks for You and Your good gifts. There are times, however, when sin and sorrow grow, pushing joy to the side. We lose sight of Your grace, ...

And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pl...

Scripture also speaks of “discernment of spirits” and encourages us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” This aspect of discernment helps us to distinguish the real from the phony, ...

A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act li...

When my grandparents were in their eighties, their television developed a fault that made the screen permanently bright green. It was good for viewing garden shows or nature programs, but it was prett...

Starbucks exploded by not just offering customers a cup of coffee but by giving them a comfortable, sophisticated environment in which to relax. Customers felt good about themselves when they walked i...

In a famous Earth Day 1971 Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly, the titular Pogo and his companion Porkypine are enjoying nature when they come upon a clearing filled with trash. Pogo says the iconic line,...

In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centered on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an in...

I believe in God and the whole business, but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all.”

Identities—what makes us who we are, the kind of people we are—is what we love. More specifically, our identity is shaped by what we ultimately love or what we love as ultimate—what, at the end of the...

There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable.

Only the beautiful is loved . . . we cannot help loving what is beautiful.

Life is short, and we can accomplish only so much. Much of what we do will remain unfinished. For now. In one of my favorite short stories of all time, “Leaf by Niggle,” author J. R. R. Tolkien provid...

What is meant by fellowship in this verse? Gossip? Cups of tea? Tours? No. What is being referred to is something of a quite different order and on a quite different level. “They met constantly to hea...

Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever...

Hear the good news: For the joy set before him, Jesus Christ endured the shame of the cross, taking all our weakness and failure. Jesus went to the cross for the joy of having you as part of God’s Kin...

A few years ago, a journalist named Joseph Blackman wrote an Op Ed on an interesting subject, “Why Clubs are Dark.” That is, why is it when you walk into a nightclub or a bar, the lights are off, or a...

Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much.

And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

Restlessness keeps the pedal to the metal. To offer a suggestive analogy in this vein: several years ago there was a recall on some Toyota vehicles. Evidently the cars would be given to sudden and unc...

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared that we would become a trivial culture. . . . Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.