beliefs on Western Culture

Jesus is understood in the light of the assumptions which control our culture.  When “reason” is invoked as a parallel or supplementary authority to “Scripture” and “tradition,” what is happening is t...

There may have been a time when people found it easy to believe anything. But we are finding it vastly easier to disbelieve anything. Both processes save the human mind from the disgusting duty of dis...

In this excerpt, author David Zahl challenges the common belief that religion is “in decline.” He argues that while Westerners, particularly younger generations, may be distancing themselves from the ...

It is always crucial to remember that our beliefs are formed not only through reason and argument but also through social conditioning.

G. K. Chesterton was well-known (and iconoclastic) in his defense of tradition in a time when progress was all the rage in Western Europe- in technology, in the sciences, in philosophy. Chesterton, on...

Just as the word itself suggests, a worldview is an overall view of the world. It’s not a physical view of the world, like the sight of planet Earth you might get from an orbiting space station. Rathe...

We are what we believe we are.

In his book The Allure of Gentleness , Dallas Willard includes a thought-provoking excerpt from Richard Robinson, a prominent atheist thinker from the mid-20th century. In his work An Atheist’...

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

Let’s talk about how our beliefs shape our actions, especially when fear is involved. You've probably heard the phrase, "ideas have consequences," right? It's easy to see this in act...

There’s a story that used to make the rounds about the German theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich’s theology was considered dangerous by many Christians in the U.S. Supposedly one time after delivering a...

Psychoanalysis . . . daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down.

Compared to our personality traits, character traits are more malleable. Our personalities can only be managed (or tamed, some might say). Our characters can be shaped, although this isn’t easy and ha...

Core beliefs can be hard to change because they’ve generally been with us for a long time, and we assume that they’re true. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to changing our core beliefs is that they are s...

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the h...

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

We might say that convictions are firmly held moral or religious beliefs that guide our beliefs, actions, or choices.

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

It was late October 1991. The crew of the fishing boat Andrea Gail , out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, had taken the vessel five hundred miles out into the Atlantic. A cold front moving along the...

I do not put much stock in "believing in God." The grammar of "belief" invites a far too rationalistic account of what it means to be a Christian. "Belief" implies propos...

’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

If I am to give you credit, I need to find you credible, while avoiding the risk of seeming credulous in giving credence to your discreditable account. From religious credos to street cred, from profe...

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

To a twentieth-century mind the notion of a virgin birth is intrinsically and preposterously inconceivable. If a woman claims–such claims are made from time to time–to have become pregnant without sex...

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

The Cave One of the most famous passages in Plato's Republic is his "Allegory of the Cave," which is found at the beginning of book seven . Socrates imagines the human condition al...

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

O Lord, Hear My Prayer (LSB 780) Copyright © 1982 Ateliers et Presses de Taizé, Taizé Community, France; admin. GIA Publications, Inc. Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, no. 100012911. ...

“I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.”