Jul 16, 2019 | Culture, Theology
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. It portrays the world of heavy metal, after all, so it’s expected. Here’s a description from one review:
Billboard described “Loud Krazy Love” as “part rock doc, part faith testimonial, part family drama.” It’s a fearless coming-of-age story that grapples with faith, teen depression, the quest for identity and the hope of a father willing to do anything for the one he loves. The film explores the relationship between the Welches and how Jennea saved Brian’s life, as he walked away from a $23 million record deal and overcame a crippling addiction to drugs to focus on becoming a good father.
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May 25, 2019 | Culture
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 was no shouting and screaming like the teenage girls, I was a Beatles fanatic through my teenage years. So anything Beatles is nostalgia for me, and this latest documentary on one of the Fab Four I caught on Netflix was a trip down memory lane. It was also an opportunity to teach my 17 year-old musical fanatic son about truth and worldview and the implications of ideas. Not to mention the evanescence of life. Many of the people who show up in the documentary (c. 1970) are long dead, John himself, tragically gunned down in front of his apartment on December 8, 1980. My wife asked a great rhetorical question as we talked about that sad event: “Who would kill a Beatle!” Indeed! But that question reveals a stark irony in the heady days of Lennon recording the iconic album Imagine. (more…)
May 11, 2019 | Culture, Epistemology - Trust
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 must argue that meaning is possible in a purely material universe. The way Dr. Sproul put it is that atheists claim we spring from a meaning-less universe, and we are hurling toward a meaning-less oblivion, and he asks, can it be possible to find true meaning between these poles of meaning-lessness? Good question. The atheists answers blithely, of course we can! Not so quick.
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Apr 1, 2019 | Culture
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, especially in the north, often had no idea how brutally slaves were treated by their masters. One overview of the book says:
Stowe’s vivid characters and portrayal of their struggles opened reader’s eyes to the realities of slavery and the humanity of enslaved people. Stowe hoped the novel would build empathy for the characters and, in turn, for enslaved individuals.
After seeing Unplanned, there is no doubt that anyone with an open mind and a shred of humanity would be cut to the quick over the realities of abortion, and the humanity of the babies who lives are unceremoniously, coldly, snuffed out.
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Nov 11, 2018 | Culture, Explanatory Power
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 be able to escape addressing it with them either. We’re confronted with it all the time. Just recently we were watching a new TV series called Manifest. It’s interesting because it has a Lost-like premise, and it’s always good when mystery is inserted into popular culture, but the writers just had to introduce homosexual characters into the plot. I turned it off. The same happened with the Amazon show Man in the High Castle, and off that went as well. Yes, I know, that’s narrow-minded and judgmental of me, but I serve a narrow-minded, judgmental Savior (just read the gospels carefully, and you’ll see lovey-dovey, affirm everyone Jesus is a figment of wishful thinking, and popular cultural imagination).
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Oct 7, 2018 | Culture
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 stem from my Christianity, so are an extension of my Christian view of reality. I have sought to persuade my children that they make sense to me, and ought to make sense to them as well. I am convinced my children would no more become left-wing, progressive, liberals than that they would become secularist agnostics or Hindus. Which brings me to Tim Keller and the concept of “social justice.”
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