Tis the season for presidential elections! I make no apologies for the fact that I exploit the fervor in such a time to introduce my friends to political theology that I’ve found helpful. As such… I’ll be hosting a very efficient book study that will meet only twice over the next month+. We’ll meet once …
Category Archives: philosophy
Capital Punishment and the Christian
The death penalty has been a rightly contentious political and moral issue in our country for at least the last 50 years. Christians rightly struggle with the question of taking the life a fellow image bearer even when that person has done something as heinous as murder. Questions of justice come into play when the …
Licking Wine From the Street
My wife once told me a story from A Tale of Two Cities. It took place in a small village outside of Paris in the late 18th century. The French Revolution had not yet begun, and the townspeople were living under oppressive poverty. One day a large cask of wine was being unloaded from a …
Aristotle’s Guide to Weight Loss
Last week I posted some thoughts regarding virtue ethics. The previous week I wrote disparagingly about Clean Eating. Since then, a lot of people have asked me about the connection between diet and virtue. OK, Tom Hanks is right. No one has asked me that. But still, it’s a question I’d like to engage. …
Is Spontaneity a Virtue?
Imagine a young woman being pursued by two suitors. The first is staid and predictable. He’s consistent, punctual, and perhaps a bit boring. The second is spontaneous. He tends towards the unexpected and adventurous. Our young woman considers a life with each of these men. She imagines that the first is a safe choice. He …
Flash Review: Into the Wild
I first read Into the Wild as a teenager. I was working at a Christian bookstore at the time, selling copies of Left Behind and The Prayer of Jabez in a shopping center off the highway. On breaks I would walk across parking lots and past chain restaurants to the Barnes & Noble to read John Krakauer’s account of …
What Happened to Lewis and Chesterton?
In his autobiography, G.K. Chesterton, the great 19th century British author, describes a formative early experience. “The very first thing I can ever remember seeing with my own eyes was a young man walking across a bridge. He had a curly moustache and an attitude of confidence verging on swagger.” The man, we’re told, was …
Death Is My Life Coach
A reader of this blog (oh, you read that right) recently asked me an unfair question. He requested a reading list on the good life. What can we read and consider that will make us more capable of facing down the next 50 or so years? His question was unfair because, really, that is the …
The Case for Wonder
Why did humans ever begin to philosophize, to create literature, or to make scientific experiments? What has been the animating force behind this remarkable project known as civilization? Among the many possible answers, consider the case for wonder. Philosophy was, from the start, awe-inspired. Plato said that, “philosophy begins in wonder.” Aristotle agreed that “it …