We swim in the waters of partisan conflict, and we can hardly recognize that underneath all the posturing, strategizing, and warfare tactics is supposed to be a real vision of human flourishing.
Our hearts, bodies, and minds need to desire the right things, so that when we are confronted with information that plays on alternate desires and fears we are not persuaded.
A lot of people have been watching Contagion recently, and many others are asking why. Is it strangely comforting? Terrifying but in a helpfully distancing way? Morbidly fascinating? The apocalyptic book of Revelation can help us understand.
Our apathy toward racial injustice is partially rooted in an insufficient understanding of the family of God.
In our enthusiasm to defend truth, we have denied a doctrine at the heart of our faith: that we are finite, sin-corrupted creatures with senses and intellect that are both inherently limited by our creatureliness and marred by the introduction of sin into the world.
Yet the more radical vision of flourishing for women would strike harder at the heart of the film’s concept: what if Molly’s real mistake was in her ultimate goal of power and success?
Our worship should teach us to long for more than our individual salvation, but to long for the redemption of the whole world.
In these seasons of Advent and Christmas especially, history points to a church whose worship is particularly political.
More than anything, Slow Burn reminded me of one of evangelicals’ (and Americans’) greatest blind spots: our own history.
When we continue feeding our desire for easy answers, we lose the ability to approach complexity with the appropriate tools.
As Leave No Trace teaches us, we’ve all been given lenses tinted by unhealthy fears because we live in a broken world that inflicts varying degrees of trauma on everyone.
When we recite an ancient creed, we aren’t just reminded of our roots but of our current connection to a global church.
Instead of viewing each other as only possessing weaknesses to be overcome, in A Quiet Place the Abbott family reminds us that our weaknesses can make each other stronger, and the strength of community is only possible because of its vulnerability.
If we are not listening, if we are not in community with people of color, women, the poor, the disabled, and the marginalized, we are guaranteed to make theological errors.
Annihilation teaches us, among other things, that sometimes our confession is more cathartic than redemptive.
Instead of dealing with tragedies like Parkland, Christians quickly spiritualize the issue in an effort to abstract the material reality away.
