Arts and Culture on Human Nature

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Author

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Keywords

I am a human being, not a human doing.

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Defining What it Means to be Human

Author

Jon Tyson

Keywords

On August 20 and September 5, 1977, two spacecraft named Voyager were launched. Eventually leaving the solar system and heading into deep space, they represented a revolutionary and promising breakthr...

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Author

E. F. Schumacher

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:48, 1 John 3:2-3, Galatians 5:16-17, Philippians 3:13-14, Colossians 3:1-2, Ephesians 4:22-24

The scholastics used to say: Homo non proprie humanus sed superhumanus est —which means that to be properly human, you must go beyond the merely human.

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A Marvel Movie Gets the Incarnation

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 24:36-43, John 20:26-27, John 21:12-15, 1 Peter 3:18, John 20:27

In the blockbuster 2017 Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , the protagonist Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) meets his absentee father, Ego (Kurt Russell) who turns out to be an alien, a "Cel...

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When Slowing Down Becomes Essential

Author

A. J. Swoboda & Nijay K. Gupta

Keywords

Jean-Dominique Bauby was widely esteemed as one of France’s most prolific and influential journalists. His work widely shaped the quickly evolving cultural landscape of Europe during the 1980s and ’90...

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WALL-E and Work

Author

Tom Nelson

Keywords

The animated movie WALL-E is a cute story of a curious robot whose job is to clean up a trashed earth. While humans once inhabited the earth, we soon discover they have been evacuated from earth with ...

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Distraction is the Greatest Threat to Churches

Author

Andrew Sullivan

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:11-13, Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 , Isaiah 30:15, Luke 10:38-42 , Mark 1:35 , Psalm 46:10

The journalist Andrew Sullivan has some strong words of advice for the modern church, If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, p...

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Godwin's Law

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:19-20, Ephesians 4:29, Proverbs 18:21, Colossians 4:6, Proverbs 10:19, Matthew 12:36-37, Proverbs 29:11, 2 Timothy 2:23-24, Proverbs 17:27-28, James 3:5-6, Ecclesiastes 10:12-14, Psalm 141:3

Have you ever heard of Godwin's Law? While it may sound like some overly technical scientific hypothesis, it’s actually quite simple. Godwin's Law, first coined in 1990 by an an attorney and e...

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Author

Mason Cooley

Keywords

History

Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.

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Pay it Forward Coffee

Author

Scott Bowerman

Keywords

There’s a coffee shop in Bluffton, SC named The Corner Perk. Bluffton is near Charleston. In 2012, a woman who wished to remain anonymous handed the owner a hundred-dollar bill and said she wanted to ...

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Villians Over Heroes

Author

Dante Alighieri

Keywords

In imaginary works it is difficult to make virtuous characters as believable and attractive as bad characters. The villains of literature and screen–Captain Ahab, the boys who go bad in Lord of the Fl...

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Author

Ted Dekker

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Unfortunately, the world has taken some of the greatest minds God has given us and locked them up in cages. Most very brilliant or creative people seem strange to ordinary people. Geniuses are almost ...

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Author

John D. Zizioulas

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The human being is defined through otherness. It is a being whose identity emerges only in relation to other beings, God, the animals and the rest of creation.

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Author

Rudolf Borchardt

Keywords

God’s garden, made “in the beginning,” does not lie behind us, but ahead of us, in hope, and, in the meantime, all around us as our place of work. History without gardens would be a wasteland. What th...

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A Different Kind of Entitlement

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:null

September 2018 The Millennial Stereotype There is perhaps no stronger stereotype of the millennial generation than that of “entitled.” For those of us who were born between 1981-1996, we’ve been lab...

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Author

Ken Myers

Keywords

Culture

Culture is what human beings make of the world, in both senses—the stuff we make from the raw material of nature, but also the meaning we make.

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Nakedness is a Funny Thing

Author

Andy Crouch

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:25, Genesis 3:7-11, Isaiah 47:3, Revelation 3:18

In his excellent book, Strong & Weak , Andy Crouch discusses the unique phenomenon of nakedness, something, as he will argue, no other species really experiences. “Nakedness” has, for good reas...

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Author

J. R. R. Tolkein

Keywords

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.

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Honoring the Body without Worshipping It

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 1:27, Song of Solomon 4:7-10, Proverbs 5:18-19 , 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 , Ephesians 5:31-32, Psalm 139:13-14

The spiritual discipline of honoring the body helps us find our way between the excesses of a culture that glorifies and objectifies the body and the excesses of Christian tradition that have often de...

liturgy

O Lord. You created the stars and named

Author

Julie Olive Hughes

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 8:4

O Lord. You created the stars and named every one of them. We have named some of the clusters like Pleiades or Orion. The Big and Little Dippers, Aquarius, Libra, Andromeda. But we can’t name them all...

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Digital Versus Analog Listening

Author

Adam S. McHugh

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 3:9-10, Exodus 19:9, 1 Kings 19:11-12, John 10:27, Revelation 3:20, Psalm 46:10

Last year I joined the growing ranks of people who have made the return to music on vinyl. There is much debate in my family as to whether I’m a hipster or will soon be eating dinner at 4 p.m. and wea...

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Pop Culture Review: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Author

William Rowley

Keywords

Entertainment

This summer, millions of people across the world will be absorbed in a highly anticipated, years-in-the-making, high-fantasy adventure featuring evil sorcerers, legendary swords, dragons, and a classi...

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The Ted Lasso Effect on Bros

Author

Scott B. Bullock

Keywords

**Spoiler Alert:**This review contains some minor spoilers about the plot of Ted Lasso . Content Alert: Ted Lasso contains adult themes, sexual content, and strong language. I’ve read at least ...

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The World Is Getting Crowded

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No one likes to talk about human population. Christians in particular are rightly wary of the ways in which population discussions have sometimes served to denigrate the value of human life and the bl...

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Seeking Integration Between Faith and Politics

Author

Kristen Deede Johnson

Keywords

I grew up near Washington D.C. surrounded by politics…I helped with the campaign of a friend’s father as he ran for state office, watched our friendly county supervisor become a US congressman, and le...

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Adjusting our Vision

Author

Jonathan Grant

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:1-2, Colossians 2:8, 1 John 2:15-17, 1 Corinthians 10:23-33, Mark 7:8-9

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...

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On Winning? Considering Kevin Durant and Anthony Bourdain

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Albert Camus Two events recently collided in my mind and coalesced into this short essay: The first was a relatively in...

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Emotions, Language, and the Experience of Homesickness

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 11:13-16, 2 Corinthians 5:1-2, John 14:2-3, Revelation 21:3-4, Matthew 8:19-20, Luke 9:57-58

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home , Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel focuses on the language associate...

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Staying Quiet in a Noisy World

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 5:8, Ephesians 6:12, Proverbs 4:23, Matthew 26:41, Psalm 46:10, 1 Kings 19:11-12, John 10:10

In the Critically acclaimed 2018 horror film A Quiet Place , Earth faces an alien invasion unlike any other. In the movie, the aliens behave like merciless monsters, using their lightning-fast sp...

liturgy

O God, You amaze us! Summer is the time

Author

Julie Olive Hughes

Keywords

O God, You amaze us! Summer is the time You designed for thunderstorms. We understand the science because You gave human beings wisdom and curiosity, and the ability to try to figure things out. We un...

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