Consumerism

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Visualize the Entire World's Wealth Inequality: Howmuch.net reports, "The Swiss are the richest with median wealth per adult at $227.9K. Haiti is the poorest country in the world with an estimated median wealth of only $214 per adult."

2. Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree: Ruh, roh. I smell marital trouble brewing. A recent Morning Consult survey revealed that 45 percent of men say they were carrying the bulk of the load for homeschooling—but only 3 percent of women actually said their partners were taking care of most of it.

3. Fandom Proves We Need Community: Eric Geiger shares, "Eric Simons quotes scientists, researchers, and psychologists who have studied what motivates a sports fan. The conclusion is a longing for community."

4. Why Our Modern World Can’t Stop Guilt: My friend John Starke considers why it is that a modern world that has seemed to throw everything it has to get rid of the outdated concept of guilt can’t seem to shake it. Starke concludes, “As Rich Plass has said, the soul will always find its way out. It’s true. Modern people try to bury their guilt before it’s dead, and like a zombie, it comes back to the surface in a more dangerous and wild version than before.”

5. A Husband's Perspective on His Wife's Postpartum Body: Tim Challies with a loving reflection on what a postpartum body means. He concludes that the husband considers his wife's body, "With gratitude, acknowledging that she has sacrificed her body so they could enjoy the thrill of pregnancy, the joy of children, and the blessings of family. And with desire, still longing to experience and increase the intimacy that has bound them together for all these years. He treasures each mark and each line as if they are his own. For in the sacred oneness of marriage, they are his own."

6. I Miss Baseball: Me too, Kevin James, me too.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. Entitlement is Poisoning the Church: Noe Garcia with a timely observation, "There is an attitude that slowly creeps in and begins to create an underlying culture of everyone wanting it their way or wanting special treatment because of who they are and what they have done for the church. It’s the attitude of privilege and prestige that goes against the very essence of James 2."

2. State of Health Report Shows Growing Despair Among American Men: This is concerning. Alexandre Tanzi from Bloomberg reports that not only is male life expectancy decreasing, but that the reasons for that decrease are concerning, "The decline in life expectancy is occurring in part due to deaths from despair. From 2007 to 2017, the mortality rate from drug overdoses increased 82%, to 21.7 deaths from 11.9 per 100,000. Over the same 10-year period, suicide rates increased 24%, to 14.0 deaths from 11.3 per 100,000 resident population."

3. How Do I Know If I Have Been Predestined to be Saved? I hear this question often. Jesse Johnson answers it well. He begins with this simple statement, and then expands, "How does a person know if they have been predestined by God for heaven? The shortest answer to the question is also the best: Do you love Jesus? If so, then you have been predestined."

4. 10 Things You Should Know About Demons and Satan: Graham Cole with a concise theology of demons. His tenth is that "We may have a blind spot: ...many western Christians may have an espoused theology affirming angels and demons, but in practice have an operational theology that lives as though God and ourselves were the only intelligences."

5. Who is Under Your Roof: New research shows dramatic changes in the living situation of the average 26 year old. More and more cross-generational homes are becoming the norm.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.       Modern Research About Happiness Repeatedly Reflects Biblical Principles: Randy Alcorn walks through eight findings about happiness from psychological research and their eight biblical parallels.

2.       The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to be a Christian: Of particular interest to me is India not only remaining #10 on this list, but unfortunately taking the top place in a new designation. Jayson Casper explains, “India ranks first in the new category of physical or mental abuse, which includes beatings and death threats. The continuing rise in the subcontinent of a militant Hindu nationalism contributed to 1,445 of the reported 14,645 cases worldwide.”

3.       Patrick Lencioni's Personal Leadership Crash: This Carey Niewhof podcast is gold. It's loaded with helpful leadership insights about a leader's health.

4.       National Giving Trends: Lifeway recently published a report on national giving trends. A few takeaways: the national giving percentage has remained at 2% for decades. Diving deeper, "giving to religious causes receives the largest amount of gifts when compared to other sectors. It is at 31%. However, in the 1980’s, religious giving received 58% and has been on a steady decline every year. This is not good."

5.       Can The Cosmic Crisp Live Up to Huge Expectations? You might have heard of the new breed of apples that just hit store shelves. But can the apple pay back the huge investment that has been made in it?

6.       What Does the Bible Say About Divorce and Remarriage? Tom Schreiner answers this difficult question.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.       The Worst Sales Promotion in History: You could say that this idea in the early 90's from the desperate leaders at Hoover totally sucked.

2.       Life After the Death of My Son: Simonetta Carr on the importance of ordinary faithfulness following tragedy. She says, "’[God's] not too busy to be with me in seemingly insignificant moments while he turns the wheels of history. This might not always be evident to my limited perception, but the same Christ who rose from the dead tells me it’s a reality on which I can count."

3.       Why I Wish We Hadn't Lived Together Before Marriage: Helpful article from Lisa Lakey. She concludes, " Doing things His way will always end better than me seeking my own will. No matter how right my way seems to me."

4.       4 Ways Conflict Can Help Your Church (and People) Grow: Dillon Smith packs in a lot of great wisdom here, " I’ve had to learn that minor moments of healthy conflict help you avoid massive moments of division that lead to disaster."

5.       Alive Again: I’ve just been introduced to Ahi and am loving getting to know his raspy, soulful voice.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.      How the Dad Joke Was Born and will Never Go Out of Style: Devika Desai with news that pops: "...dad jokes never go out of style — mostly because they’re so resistant to even trying to stay in style."

2.      7 Surprising Trends in Global Christianity in 2019: This report by Gordon-Conwell Seminary has some nuggets in it that will likely surprise most Americans. For instance, " In 1900, only 5.5% of non-Christians knew a Christian. Today, that has grown to 18.3%."

3.      Why Our Culture Still Accepts Abortion: Anthony Esolen boils his answer down to one word: money. He concludes, " Then let the pro-life movement be advised. We are really asking for a moral revolution. If the child lives, the mother’s life will not be the same, because if we accept the principles that allow the child to live, none of our lives can be the same."

4.      Who Owns Your Body? Andree Seu Peterson, a master with words, takes aim at the notion of our bodily autonomy. She begins, " In the mid-’70s my brother was being cute after I became a Christian: “You realize, don’t you, that now you have to submit to a husband?” He was saying I wouldn’t own my own body anymore. I didn’t take the bait: “You know, bro, I just stepped down from being lord of the whole universe; it is a very small thing to go one baby step further to submitting to a husband.”"

5.      A Tree Between Two Mountains: Chris Thomas reflects on the spiritual gifts of the spiritual deserts of life: " So savour Him on the mountain tops when He shows up with burning fire, and hear Him in the cleft of the rock when He gently whispers your name, but learn to see Him in the shadow of the Broom tree, as He lays out a feast of His sustaining goodness and bids you eat."

6.      Fantastic Fall Foliage... and where to Find it: Few things beat the beauty of beautiful fall foliage. I love this graphic-rich presentation of fall foliage.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.        Millennials Tried to Kill the Mall, But Gen Z Might Save it: Jordyn Holman with the surprising report that Gen Zers don't just go to the mall more, but they like going to the mall! She says, " Today’s teens interact differently with stores than their older siblings and Gen X parents before them..."

2.       John and Jesus Didn't Think You Could Be a Christian Without the Church: Fleming Rutledge says that, "the overwhelming emphasis in John is not on individuals but on the organic connection that Jesus creates among those who put their trust in him."

3.       Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Abortion and Eugenics: This is a long, but well written article on the history of Margaret Sanger, abortion, eugenics, and racism. And it's by an unusl author: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. 

4.       God's Inner Work: Susan Lafferty with a wonderful reflection on the hidden and beautiful work of God. 

5.       9 Types of Effective Evangelism: Aaron Earls offers 9 ways to reach out that studies prove are effective. One of the nine is inviting a neighbor to a service project: " Half of all unchurched (51%) say they would likely come to a community service project organized by a local Christian church."

6.       Faithful Evangelical Men Are Resisting Porn: Buried in new data about porn usage is this encourage fact: men who attend church regularly are resisting porn at much higher rates than those who don't attend church.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.      Sunday Regulars are Happier and Healthier: Kate Shellnut shares the findings of a recent Pew Research Center report, " Whatever the explanation may be, more than one-third describe themselves as very happy, compared with just a quarter of both inactive and unaffiliated Americans."

2.      Move Over Sex and Drugs, Ease is the New Vice: Jen Pollock Michel with a sharp insight, "The decline in sexual activity and cereal sales hardly seem correlated, but both seem to point to one of the most seductive promises of a technological age: that ours should be an unbothered life. As our lives (at least in the developed world) get easier, we are increasingly formed by the desire for ease."

3.      Why Are you Hiding? This is written specifically for pastors, but it applies to many of us. Chuck DeGroat asks us why we keep our real selves hidden and why that might be our destruction: "The 17th-century Presbyterian clergyman John Flavel wrote in Keeping the Heart, 'There are some men and women who have lived forty or fifty years in the world and have had scarcely one hour’s discourse with their hearts all the while.' I’ve found this to be true of many people in ministry... They’re lost pastors, lonely and busy and empty and radically disconnected from any kind of inner conversation with their hearts and with the God who is more near to them than their very breath."

4.      They Really Did Come From Nothing: Lucia Tai, the daughter of immigrants reports on her journey back to her parents' birth home in Vietnam and how that reshaped her perception of them and undermined her ingratitude. She says, " I’ve come to see that my parents have spent the majority of their lives trying to assimilate into a new culture and to fit a mould that they were not born into...The experience also helped me to further reject internalised racism and to appreciate my heritage more. After experiencing my family’s truth, all the values that had been drilled into me from young started to make sense: the undying work ethic, the need to save every penny, the call to be grateful and to make sacrifices for the family."

5.      4 Traits of a Good Small Group Question: Lynn Pryor with great advice for leading any discussion group. Her four traits of a good question are:"1. They don’t call for a single right answer; 2. They don’t have an obvious answer; 3. They don’t call for a short answer; 4. They call for a personal response or answer."

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.      How America Grew Bored with Love: This is a damning indictment by David Masciotra: " It has become the stuff of cliché to read “cutting edge” cultural critics deconstruct popular love stories like Pretty Woman and Say Anything, reimagining them as predatory tales of women surrendering to sexual harassment. Never mind that the largest audiences for these films were always and will likely remain women."

2.      Are you Middle Class? Helpful little chart.

3.      Confessions of a Glory Hoarder: Cassi Crowley talks about the painful sanctification of motherhood: " Not surprisingly, motherhood threw a wrench into my self-glorification. I haven’t received nearly as much glory as I’ve been accustomed to in previous seasons. In the academic world, you get grades and diplomas. In the professional world, you get performance reviews and promotions. In the social world, you get friends and influence. In motherhood, you get dirty diapers and sleep deprivation."

4.      A Hundred Year-Old Reflection on Self-Forgetfulness: BB Warfield concludes, "Only, when, like Christ, and in loving obedience to His call and example, we take no account of ourselves, but freely give ourselves to others, we shall find, each in his measure, the saying true of himself also: “Wherefore also God hath highly exalted him.” The path of self-sacrifice is the path to glory."

5.      The Earth Below: Beautiful time lapse. Makes you want to pick up Genesis 1, doesn't it?

Our Secular Age edited by Collin Hansen

Our Secular Age edited by Collin Hansen

The premise of Our Secular Age doesn’t have strong curb appeal: evangelical Christians grappling with the contribution of a contemporary philosopher’s nearly 900 page tome. Despite the fact that one of my favorite authors, James KA Smith has been significantly influenced by Charles Taylor, I still have yet to pick up Taylor’s A Secular Age.

Despite the less-than-enticing premise, Our Secular Age is a book that should be broadly read by Christian leaders. Even for the reader (like myself) who has no first-hand experience with Taylor, his theses are laid out clearly and the wide-ranging impact of his thought is explored and at times critiqued.

Taylor’s central thesis is that the secular world is a world that has turned its focus on the self and lost its sense of the transcendent. Collin Hansen says that Taylor traces the beginnings of this age to Martin Luther: “Taylor faults the Protestant Reformation and modern evangelical Christianity for disenchanting the world and turning the focus on the self rather than on God through and turning the focus on the self rather than on God through shared religious rituals.”