Edward T. Hall likened the effects of culture to an iceberg. Some aspects of a culture are overt, in clear view above the waterline, so to speak. But most are hidden deep below the surface, forming th...
Titus 2:7-8, Jeremiah 2:4-9, Romans 12:21, Matthew 5:13-16, Genesis 41:
While there is a place for condemning, critiquing, consuming and copying culture, the primary posture Christ followers are to have in the world is as culture makers. In regard to history, the word cul...
Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ...
One of the areas often missed in a lot of Christian apologetics is the social setting in which a person encounters the gospel. For example, it is far easier to espouse "rational arguments" f...
In this short excerpt, the abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass describes the tension between faith in Christ and faith in a form of Christianity willing to enslave an entire race of peopl...
Micah 6:6–8, 1 Samuel 8:4–9, Jeremiah 7:1–7, John 8:36, Romans 12:2, Psalm 146:3–5
Nothing illustrates evangelicals’ infatuation with politics more clearly than a story related by a Christian lawyer. Considering whether to take a job in the nation’s capital, he consulted with the le...
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...
There Are No Ordinary Things J. R. R. Tolkien tells a short story about an ordinary fellow who just wants to finish a painting. Over time, he is constantly distracted by the requests of his neighbors...
John 17:6-19, Matthew 20:20-21, Matthew 6:22-23, Exodus 3:2-5
Jesus Prepares for Departure John 17 is part of a larger section of John’s gospel known as the farewell discourses (13:31-17:26), in which Jesus prepares for his imminent departure from earth after h...
John 17:6-19, Matthew 20:20-21, Matthew 16:22-23, Exodus 3:2-5
Jesus Prepares for Departure John 17 is part of a larger section of John’s gospel known as the farewell discourses (13:31-17:26), in which Jesus prepares for his imminent departure from earth after h...
We have the same biblical texts that earlier generations of Christians thought their way through, of course, but our reflections are shaped by six unique factors. (1) Especially in the Anglo-Saxon wo...
The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed. It is the nearest thing to a manifes...
Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith…in Acts 15, which declared that the new gentile Christians didn’t have to enter Jewish culture…. The converts had to work out…a Hellenistic way of...
Isaiah 1:13-17, 1 Samuel 8:19-20 , Hosea 4:6, Romans 12:2, Matthew 23:27-28, Psalm 78:5-8
By failing to come to grips with how cultural dysfunctions deeply impact the health of the church, our leaders will continue to fail to discern an essential reality concerning the nature of change: Cu...
Even more germane to the concerns of this book, it is important to remember how the American concern for enumerating Christian work can look to non-Americans. Kanzo Uchimura (1861-1930) was a Japanese...
God built into the creation a variety of cultural spheres, such as the family, economics, politics, art, and intellectual inquiry. Each of these spheres has its own proper "business" and nee...
Genesis 11:1-9 , Jonah 1:4, Daniel 1:6 , Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 17:16-34, Psalm 2:
If one looks at the world scene from a missionary point of view, surely the most striking fact is that, while in great areas of Asia and Africa the church is growing, often growing rapidly, in the lan...
Pop psychology is wrong when it tells you to look inside yourself and find your value. The magazines are wrong when they suggest you are only as good as you are thin, muscular, pimple-free, or perfume...
The problem is not recognizing the importance of the individual. The problem is the glorification of the individual. When the individual self is glorified over the greater good of the community, right...
The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...
I grew up attending churches designed for church people. No one said it, but the assumption was that church was for church people. The unspoken message to the outside world was, “Once you start believ...
1 Samuel 16:7, Amos 5:21-24 , Isaiah 1:11-17, John 4:21-24, Matthew 18:20, Psalm 95:6-7
A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ...
An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...