Articles on Culture
CRU Goes Full-On Woke
I Knew when Campus Crusade for Christ changed their name to CRU in 2011 it wasn’t a good sign. I can understand that the word crusade had some negative connotations in the Middle East, but only because Muslims and too many Christians accepted a faulty interpretation...
Libertarians are Not Conservatives: Dave Ruben and Same-Sex Surrogacy
We live in very strange times. For all recorded history the peoples of the world, no matter what their view of the universe and religious outlook, from the most rank deranged heathens to the most pristine moralistic religious people, believed in the fundamental...
Tim Keller’s Unfortunate Moral Equivalence Between Left and Right
I love and respect Tim Keller, immensely. Not only was he our pre-marital counselor when my wife and I were in seminary back in 1987, but his teaching has been a significant blessing to me both theologically and apologetically. I also pray for him daily as he deals...
Jordan Peterson’s Daughter Converts to Christianity
I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I learned Jordan Peterson’s daughter, Mikhaila, had recently become a Christian.
Netflix’s Midnight Mass a Secular Hit Job on Christianity
If you’re not familiar with it, Midnight Mass is a new Netflix series about a very strange little island with only one lone old Catholic church that eventually dominants everything on the Island, and in very unexpected ways.
The Last Kingdom and How I Was Programmed by Modern Medicine
You might be familiar with the Netflix series, The Last Kingdom, and if so you might think it a very strange thing that it would have anything to do with my mind being programmed by modern medicine. I realized, looking back, how easily I, and by extension all of us,...
The Cultural Caricature of Christians: Don’t Buy What the Secular Culture is Selling!
One of my pet peeves is how easily Christians buy into the hostile secular cultural caricature of conservative Christians. What do I mean by that? The culture via its many powerful and ubiquitous means of communications communicates that Christians are generally...
What Happens When You See a Beautiful Butterfly?
That will depend on what our eyes and brain have been programmed to see, whether it is by the secular culture in which we daily swim, or God's word. If it is the former, we'll see a pretty butterfly, beautiful colors that amaze us, and that's it. If it is the latter,...
FYI, Loki, Almighty God is Sovereign Over the Sacred Timeline
If you don't know what a Loki is, neither did I until six weeks ago. He's a character in the Marvel cinematic universe, and an unsavory character; he's not referred to as the god of mischief for nothing. My son, our youngest at 19 and a keen observer of culture,...
Diversity is Not a Virtue: Critical Race Theory and Marxism
Many well meaning Christians are under the impression that diversity is a good thing. It is not. It is not a bad thing either; it just is. In other words, just because a certain population is diverse in terms of skin color or nationality doesn't make it morally better...
DC’s Silly Talk: Dissecting a Deconstruction
I saw yet another story last week about a Christian "celebrity" who announced his "deconstruction," meaning leaving Christianity, or in his case, re-defining it. This "Grammy-winning vocalist," Kevin Max, is a member of "the popular Christian band DC Talk." He calls...
Billie Eilish: A Clueless Teenager the Secular World is Going All Lady Gaga Over
Until I read a thoughtful article about her a couple days ago at The Federalist, I had never heard of pop superstar Billie Eilish.
Voddie Baucham on the The Abomination of Sodomy
In case you're not familiar with that word, it means homosexuality, and to call it an abomination is, well, just not polite! Not to mention, it can get you "cancelled." I'm shocked this video by Voddie hasn't gotten taken down from YouTube, or what I've come to call...
Milo Yiannopoulos Is No Longer a Homosexual!
When I told my son, I guess the more cynical of my three children, he didn't believe it. He, like a lot of people, figured he wasn't even homosexual in the first place, that it was all an act to gain attention. If you don't know who Milo is, he is a provocateur who...
There is Nothing as Seductively Secular as Frank
If you have to ask what Frank, stop reading right now. Anyone who lived in the 20th century, and raised their kids well in the 21st, should know that could only be the incomparable Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board. The other night my wife told some little intimate...
A Charlie Brown Christmas: Now More Than Ever!
As is our family Christmas tradition, we watched yet again the wonderful Charlie Brown Christmas special that first aired in 1965, when I was all of five years old.
The Triumph of the Therapeutic: It’s All About Me!
I'm not sure the title of a book can better capture our age than Philip Reiff's 1966 classic The Triumph of the Therapeutic, especially in the tumultuous 2020. The book is Reiff's take on Sigmund Freud, who he thought a genius, and the response of other psychoanalysts...
RIP Eddie Van Halen – Memento Mori
Eddie Van Halen was my sworn enemy when I was a teenager aspiring to be a guitar god. I'm a bit competitive by nature. I'll never forget a trip I took to the local Guitar Center on Hacienda Boulevard (SoCal) when I was 16 or 17. For some reason driving there I was...
The Good Place: How Culture Helps Strengthen Your Children’s Faith
It's become a cliche that we live in a "post-Christian" culture. This is shown in obvious hostility to Christians and their faith, but more perniciously when Christianity and God are ignored as if they are completely irrelevant to existence. The latter provides the...
Why Supporting President Trump is a Moral Imperative
I rarely get political here because my passion is to defend the veracity of the Christian faith, as I have to my children all their lives, and to rest of my brothers and sisters in Christ. But I feel I must in this case get political because I'm weary of left-wing,...
An Introduction to Classical Education from my Favorite Daughter
You already know I only have one daughter, but she's still my favorite! She's a champion for classical education, and a lower school academic dean at a charter classical school. She wrote an e-mail to parents recently, and I thought is was an excellent introduction to...
Jim Elliot: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Most Americans have never heard of Jim Elliot, the young man who died as a missionary in the jungles of Ecuador on January 8, 1956. Many Evangelical Christians have, and as something of a hero for his sacrifice to take the faith to the Indians in the jungles of...
Chick-fil-A Again: It’s Even Worse Than I Thought How Worse it Could Be
I came across an article today FrontPageMAG that revealed Chick-fil-A's cave to leftist bullies is much worse than I wrote about in my last post. The title and subtitle of the FrontPage piece says it all: "Chick-fil-A Put an Obama and Hillary Supporter in Charge, but...
Chick-fil-A to Christians: You ARE Bigots!
By now you've surely heard that the Chick-fil-A Foundation, the arm of the chicken giant ($10.5 billion in revenue and growing fast) that gives money to various causes, has changed its giving mission. Part of the announcement included the news that they will no longer...
“This Beautiful Fantastic”: Beware Secular Indoctrination
Secularism is the religion of the 21st century West, and all the most powerful messaging cultural machinery indoctrinates us into its view of reality. At the top of that list has to be our entertainment mediums, especially movies and television. Stories on screens are...
My Take on Kanye: A Profound Cultural Moment
Most people are familiar with the name of Kanye West, even if they think it an infamous one. After all, he's married to a Kardashian, and with that comes a cultural ubiquity of not the best sort, at least from a Christian perspective. Plus I've always thought of him...
40 Days for Life: Don’t Eat the Babies, Save the Babies!!!
In case you are not aware where "Eat the babies" came from, watch this priceless satire of the leftists' absurd obsession with "climate change": The woman was a plant at an AOC townhall, and she appears distraught at the "three months" we have before "climate change"...
Classical Education: Opportunity to Challenge The Religion of Secularism
We were all taught growing up that there is this thing called the separation of church and state. The phrase goes back to a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists (CT) in 1802 where he mentions a wall between the two. This metaphor of Jefferson was...
What Parents and their Children Can Learn from the Train Wreck of Amy Winehouse’s Life
If you're at all familiar with popular music in the last decade or two you surely know of Amy Winehouse. This young talent died of alcohol poisoning in July of 2011 at the ripe old age of 27, joining the pantheon of young musicians who've died before they got old. My...
Another Mass Shooting: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”
My first response to hearing of the horrific shooting in El Paso was, where was the good guy with the gun who could have stopped this? This is the world bequeathed to us by a secular culture that has rejected God, that you can't go shopping on a Saturday morning in...
KORN Guitarist’s ‘Loud Krazy Love’ Documentary: Powerful
God saves sinners. That thought keep ringing in my brain as we recently watched a new documentary about the Brian Welch, the lead guitarist of a heavy metal band called Korn. Loud Krazy Love, is not for the faint of heart (or children), or those sensitive to F-bombs....
The Dumbest, and Most Dangerous, Song Ever Written: “John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky”
Having grown up in the 1960s I became a Beatles fan at a very early age. I'll never forget when my dad took me to the iconic Capitol Records building in LA when I was all of five-years-old, and I purchased my very first Beatles record, Meet the Beatles. Although there...
R.C. Sproul: Can We Find Meaning Between the Poles of Meaninglessness?
I was recently listening to the late great R.C. Sproul talk about a very large problem for atheists (agnostics as well because they are practical atheists). Since atheists are materialists (the material is all that exists, there is no God or spiritual reality), they...
Is Unplanned the 21st Century Uncle Tom’s Cabin for Abortion?
Probably not, but it should be. If you're not familiar with the novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), it was published in 1852 to communicate to the American people the evils of slavery. Many people who were not involved in slavery,...
Why Is Homosexuality Unnatural in Addition to Sin?
Given this is ostensibly a blog about parenting, and that I soon have a book about parenting to be published, and we live in the 21st century, I can't escape commenting on homosexuality. As you know it is ubiquitous in our culture, and if you have children you won't...
Tim Keller is Wrong About Social Justice
I don't often get into political discussions here because this is a website about apologetics for my Christian faith and worldview, but I've also practiced apologetics for my political and economic convictions with my kids all their lives. These convictions of course...
Reflections on the Suicide of a Megachurch Pastor
Life can be so ineffably sad sometimes, and when I recently read about the suicide of a high-profile pastor I couldn't get it out of my mind. It made me angry even as it broke my heart. Commenting on a situation like it is fraught with danger in an age such as ours,...
Anne of Gay Gables
The subject of this post may sound vaguely familiar, but with a very postmodern, 21st century twist. Many are familiar with the beloved 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables. Netflix has adapted the novel into a series called Anne...
In What Kind of Culture Do 45,000 People a Year Commit Suicide?
The statistics tell us that 45,000 people kill themselves in America every year; that is 123 per day! According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (which obviously isn't doing a very good job), for every successful suicide, 25 people try to kill...
“Conspiracy” and the Longing for Justice
In the soon to be blockbuster best-seller, The Persuasive Christian Parent, I tell the story of "the clicker." Yes, that clicker, more commonly known as the remote control. As you'll read in the book, the clicker is a great tool for engaging popular culture with our...
Public (Government) Schools Must Be Abolished!
You can tell from the title of this post, that I won't be running for political office anytime soon. What's wrong with public schools? Why would I think they should be abolished? Many would call me crazy, but my argument is based on the first amendment to the...
Secularism and Mass Shootings
I've been on a bit of a secularism kick of late, and as you may know I'm not a fan. I thought of secularism, and its discontents, as I heard of the latest American mass shooting in our new home state of Florida. Seventeen people killed in the prime of life, not by a...
Secularism and the Berlin Wall, Part 4 – Secularism Unmasked
In my previous post I dealt with why secularism might be appealing in our modern context. I argued that it's not anything inherent in secularism that makes it more appealing than Christianity, but the cultural messaging machine that promotes it. That's why it's a...
Secularism and the Berlin Wall, Part 3 – The Appeal of Secularism
I ended my last post claiming that secularism is no less a paper tiger than the Berlin Wall. That's quite an assertion in the face of a secular cultural hegemony that seems to approach absolute. Everywhere we look, people who claim the name of Christ are on the...
Historical Aberations – Secularism and the Berlin Wall, Part 2
As I stated in my last post, The Berlin Wall is a great metaphor for the current reigning worldview in the West, secularism. My thesis: Secularism is a deeply flawed and weak explanation for the nature of reality. Correctly understood, we don’t need to fear secularism...
Secularism – The Modern Berlin Wall, Part 1
On the evening the title of this post came to mind, I'd been interacting with a possible publisher for the book. They have a concern with what appears my excessive confidence that we, Christians, can keep our kids Christian. Having read just the first few chapters...
The More Secular a Society, The Fewer Children Will Be Born
When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, the big concern and among fear-mongering apocalyptics was over-population. One best-seller at the time, published in 1968 by Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich, was subtly titled The Population Bomb. It predicted that...
When In Doubt: How Culture Determines Plausibility
Although only 3% of Americans claim to be atheists according to a recent survey, belief in God can be problematic in a culture awash in secularism. In our media, education, and entertainment God is persona non grata. Here are three examples: It's amazing how many...
Notable Quotation
I signed the Nashville Statement because I stand with Biblical orthodoxy, which is inseparable from God’s creation mandate and definition of gendered personhood found in Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and...
Queens of the Stone Age – The Vampyre Of Time And Memory -Searching But Never Finding . . .
My teenage music obsessed son shared this song from Queens of the Stone Age with me, and I was haunted by the lyrics. Human beings are really good at rejecting any ultimate meaning in the universe, but spending their life searching for it. Never finding. The lyrics of...
Popular Christian author thinks it takes ‘moxie’ to get your books banned
We live in convoluted times, where we're supposed to believe what is up is down, what is black is white, and where the only thing we can say is wrong are people who say things are wrong. This is especially true when it comes to the issues of sexuality in Western...
“We Must Be True to Ourselves”
The title of this post is almost an axiom among modern Americans. We may hear it put in other ways as well, like "as long it makes you happy," or "you must do what's in your heart." I've heard it said that we live in the age of "the sovereign self." In our age, the...
Bob Dylan And His Classical Education
Although I've never been a big fan of Bob Dylan, I've always appreciated his genius, and especially his ability to capture the cultural Zeitgeist. A piece by Rod Dreher titled "Bob Dylan On The Road To Damascus" explains why he was so good at this. We learn from...
The Epidemic of Unexamined Assumptions
Given I'm a fan of popular culture, and a student of it's influence on, and reflection of, the worldview of the people in that culture, I was very eager to read a piece titled Questioning the Gods: How TV's Tackling Belief and Religion. The article perfectly captures...
Notable Quotation
We must attack the enemy's line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our...
God Gave Us His Law, and The Created Order, That We Might Flourish
We live in the age of The Sovereign Self. Phrases heard throughout the culture like, "Just be true to yourself," or "As long as it makes you happy" are common. Such ideas reflect the triumph of the subjective, which basically asserts that each individual can...
FX’s The Americans: Everyone Lives by Faith
The FX show The Americans is set in the Reagan era Cold War 80s. Two Soviet intelligence agents, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, pose as a married couple to spy on the American government. They didn't know each other prior to meeting in America, and are tasked with...
Are Millennials The Most Narcissistic Generation Ever?
In my previous post I wrote about the word of the year, "post-truth," and how the triumph of the subjective makes assertions of Christianity as true, or anything as true for that matter (outside of scientific claims), problematic for many of our neighbors. The...
The 4 Horsemen of the Philosophical Apocalypse
I saw this title at the Intellectual Takeout website, and was instantly curious. Two of the first three chapters of my book are on truth and epistemology, so I'm a big believer that philosophy is not exactly tangential to keeping our kids Christian. Most Americans,...
Darwinism: A Theory in Crisis?
Darwinists are fond of saying that evolution is a "fact." Maybe, but facts are not self-explanatory. Most people who believe in evolution as an undirected, material process of random mutation driven by natural selection, are sincere and think the "facts" compel us to...
Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!
Charlie Brown: Isn’t there anyone, who knows what Christmas is all about?! Linus: Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights please? And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by...
Darwin’s Unbelief is News?
Over the years I've read a variety of things about Charles Darwin's faith and his so called struggle with it, as if he was truly ambivalent about it. The deeper he got into his theory of evolution, the story goes, the more his faith gave way to doubt and eventually to...
Christians Are Coming Out of the Cultural Closet
With hit "faith-based" movies like War Room and Captive, there was much discussion about Christians and film making. Interestingly enough, some of the harshest critics of these movies are from Christians themselves who seem embarrassed by what I call the cheese factor...
Maybe Bowie is Looking Down from Heaven
Since Father Time took the great David Bowie, I have read numerous speculations about what might have been the state of his soul. Bowie, the consummate showman and actor, was a very private man, refreshing in the age of instant everything. So there isn't a lot to go...
Revisiting ‘Faithful Presence’: ‘To Change the World,’ Five Years Later
I read James Davison Hunter's "To Change The World" several years ago and thought it was a brilliant analysis of the power of cultural institutions to shape the culture. His strategy for cultural engagement, though, left me puzzled at the time. He called it "faithful...
Those Who Write and Tell The Stories, Control the Culture
I recently wrote a post at The American Culture about how the hot fall TV trend is interracial lesbian relationships. I argued that Hollywood has long had an agenda to normalize homosexual behavior, and because of that many Americans vastly overestimate the gay and...
Notable Quotation
Colson’s public-square work offers modern evangelicals a workable model. Initially, Colson considered himself contra mundum, “against the world,” as a believer. He wished to stand against evil. He never lost this vital perspective, but his friend, First Things editor...
Polyamory for All!
The gay "marriage" ruling, the gift that keeps on giving. As one headline read: "‘Sister Wives’ family points to same-sex marriage cases in arguing against Utah polygamy ban." Of course they would, and they would be perfectly logical to do so. In fact, the Obergefell...
Resources – Mars Hill Audio
Mars Hill is the famous place in Athens where the Apostle Paul debated with and spoke to Greek philosophers as described in Acts 17. It is also the name of an audio journal produced by Ken Myers for more than 20 years. A couple years ago Andrew Ferguson at the Weekly...
Richard Nixon: Culture Warrior
Most people would date the start of the culture wars to the 1960s and the sexual revolution, but the secular left's war against all things traditional actually began with the Chambers-Hiss case in 1948, according to Mark Judge. He makes a persuasive case. More...
“The Onion,” Pro-Life?
What is this world coming to when The Onion can mock the abortion industry without any seeming embarrassment or concern? That’s just what they did in one of their faux news stories, “Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex.” A mall dedicated to abortion! It’s...
Gay Marriage Supporters: Any Regrets Yet?
David Harsanyi at The Federalist is one such conservative supporter who is having second thoughts. In "Was I Wrong To Support Gay Marriage?" he articulates what should have been obvious to everyone from pretty much the beginning of the push to redefine marriage: I’ve...
Notable Quotation
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that our entire culture is in trouble. We are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, and we can no longer afford to act like it's loaded with blanks. The guidance counselor at a public high school near my home...
Credit Pop Culture for Gay Marriage
The title of a piece in the LA Times after the gay marriage ruling: "Years before court ruling, pop culture shaped same-sex marriage debate." Ya think!" In fact, film and television have made homosexuality almost ubiquitous, to the point where many Americans think...
Notable Quotation
On the Confederate battle flag, we are once again witnessing the sheer cultural power of the Left: take an irrelevancy (or at the very least a sideshow), make it the central, all-consuming issue, move the debate with astonishing speed, and then, after achieving the...