Category: ethics

The Lost Art of Friendship: Building Trust and Affection with Strangers as the Medicine of Life

November 18, 2021

In his book The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis writes: “To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.” Its not just that we are poorer without friends, but one can die without friends. … More The Lost Art of Friendship: Building Trust and Affection with Strangers as the Medicine of Life

A Train Wreck in Slow Motion: The Rise and Fall of Mark Driscoll’s Unbridled Charisma

November 10, 2021

This new podcast from Christianity Today is dramatic, critical, intense, and wide-ranging in its exploration of the collapse of an evangelical megachurch and its megapersonality, Mark Driscoll. The production is stellar, and the analysis both trenchant and candid. The trailer says: “Its a story of power, platform and fame, and an unflinching look at the cost.” … More A Train Wreck in Slow Motion: The Rise and Fall of Mark Driscoll’s Unbridled Charisma

Taking the Bible Seriously in Scholarship

October 27, 2021

A biblically Christian worldview is well positioned to compensate for the compartmentalization we see in the secular academy. After all, our most basic confession as Christians is that our world belongs to God, which has huge ramifications for our task as academics. If God has brought into being an orderly creation subject to his laws and norms, we can come to our respective fields of scholarly endeavour confident that they find their place within an integral whole sustained by God himself through Jesus Christ. … More Taking the Bible Seriously in Scholarship

Grace in the Play of Role Reversals: Muslim Hospitality to Christians in the West

August 3, 2021

I was guest at a Muslim Society event in my home town of Guelph, which prompted me to re-consider the notion of hospitality. We usually view the practise from the superior position of the host. But if it is true that worship is a participation in God’s Trinitarian hospitality, we might do well to consider the notion from the role of guest and the spiritual practise of guesting (yes, it’s a word). This is especially relevant in the post-Christian West, and in the context of a polycentric World Christianity. … More Grace in the Play of Role Reversals: Muslim Hospitality to Christians in the West

Post-Christendom Ethics: Evangelism as Immoral, Confessional, Embodied and Beautiful

June 12, 2021

If sharing Good News can never be a bad thing, how come its such a turn off in North America? Can a professor “evangelize” in his university class if evangelism is understood as a form of persuasion? How does evangelism relate to sex and beauty? Here I review two books on the ethics of evangelism in a post-Christendom world. … More Post-Christendom Ethics: Evangelism as Immoral, Confessional, Embodied and Beautiful

A Quiet Celebration? Global Scholars Canada at 25 (+1) Years

May 31, 2021

In the West there is a growing assessment of the wider legacy of Christian mission that may subdue any celebration of global missions because it indites missionaries for their part in colonization, enslavement, and the cultural and racial genocide of countless peoples—a terrible legacy that is said to be the direct cause of global geo-political injustice and strife to this day. This narrative is no doubt the dominant narrative about Christianity on our public university campuses across Canada. But there is more to be said here… … More A Quiet Celebration? Global Scholars Canada at 25 (+1) Years

Confessions and a “No Hate” Religion: Lessons on Racism from Jack

May 17, 2021

This Pentecost, I tell the story of my Jewish neighbour Jack, and how he reminded me that God created this wonderful diversity, but we have this tendency to want to raise ourselves up and put our neighbour down. Racism, prejudice, anti-Semitism, bullying–its personal, its tribal, its systemic, and it can be transnational–but it is exhibit A in terms of evidence for sin as the chronic human problem. … More Confessions and a “No Hate” Religion: Lessons on Racism from Jack

Making Space not Safe, but Good: Learning to Listen Hard so we Don’t Shoot

May 6, 2021

Over the last few decades the term “safe space” has been used to name a physical space, event or conversation that intends to protect people from attitudes, words, and perspectives that may be perceived as hurtful to someone or offensive to their own convictions. I hear it frequently in my church, but this new “safe” initiative has been most prevalent on public university campuses, and usually pertains to discussions of controversial social issues. This practise needs to stop, for our own safety. … More Making Space not Safe, but Good: Learning to Listen Hard so we Don’t Shoot

Imagine A New World: The Stretching and Chastening of Our Creative Powers

April 28, 2021

At every university student poster sale, Einstein’s wild hair (and sometimes protruding tongue) accompanies his quip that “Imagination is more important than logic.” Imagination is not the sole domain of the artsy and literary types, and its good that we have a scientist promoting more than rationality. But Einstein’s next line opens up all kinds of surprises: “Imagination is the language of the soul.” Yes, the imagination is religion’s home country, and every Christian’s gift to steward. Survival is insufficient, as Star Trek’s famous quote tells us. We must all explore beyond the visible and the known to somewhere better. … More Imagine A New World: The Stretching and Chastening of Our Creative Powers