bible and theology on Anonymity

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...

One of the universal experiences of life is questioning whether God really exists or if we are ultimately, alone in the universe. The great British theologian (this isn’t meant to be taken seriously) ...

Sometimes we become so lonely, we'll do whatever we can to have some social interaction. Vulgar and with a quick wit, Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a significant short-story writer and social cri...

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 ...

Editor’s Note: This story is often told as a true story, when in fact it is probably fictitious. Nevertheless, there is a significant illustrative point: sometimes the things we fear most may in fact ...

One of the early hits of the internet had to be eBay. Suddenly getting rid of your old junk, or otherwise unnecessary “stuff,” could be sold, not just to your neighbors in a yard sale, but to anyone w...

Love to be unknown.

I went to the IRS office in Oakland. I waited. And I waited. Eventually I was escorted through a warren of cubicles to the one where I was to meet the agent who would assist me. Alone in the bowels of...

Through death we may as well be nameless. We’re essentially waiting to be forgotten in time. But in Christ we are known, eternally, by the Father with the same intimacy and affection he has for his So...

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Epithets can chip away at the image of God in us. Name-calling and identity theft are felonious offenses against divinity and humanity. Blasphemy. Those of us who have been victims of identity theft o...

No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no o...

Another feature of shame’s presentation is that of hiding. Whether it is the involution into the silence of our own minds or the literal turning away from someone with a downcast facial expression wit...

Busyness allows us to avoid the deepest questions of our souls. It keeps us at arm's length from our truest, most authentic selves. And when we don't know our deepest, most authentic selves, w...

The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.

In October 2014 Wired magazine reported on the dirty work every social media company must somehow handle: moderating the deluge of exploitative, degrading content posted in unimaginable quantities aro...

The simple truth of our being gets lost in the metanarratives we spin. We become the fictions we live. Consequently, our way of being in the world is so false and unnatural that our presence is thorou...

Our age dislikes intensely the idea of mystery because it directly exposes our limitations. The thought that there could be something, or someone, beyond human comprehension or imagining is, of course...

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...

The final mystery is oneself.

The absence of boundaries creates nonorder, and nonorder is not the end of exclusion but the end of life.

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.

Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.

What happens when a ‘gifted child’ finds himself in a wilderness where he’s stripped of any way of proving his worth? What does he do when there’s nothing he can do, when there’s no audience to applau...

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.

In this excerpt from his book Faith in the Shadows, pastor and author Austin Fischer shares a surprising truth about the need to be vulnerable with our own faith if we are likely to have a positive im...

…When I venture into wilderness, I’m surprised by how much I enjoy my own company…The person I travel with there isn’t worried about his performance. He sheds the polished persona he tries so often to...

Whether young or old, Americans are feeling more isolated. According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, about half of Americans have weekly interactions with their neighbors, which means ...