If you’ve read this blog for a while, I guess you know that I’m a fan of The Lord of the Rings. I’m not one of those Tolkien fanboys who is going to react with offense when you get a fact wrong. Rather, I’m a fan of a good story and it’s beyond dispute, I…
Today, the second to last day of my vacation, I offer this little reflection on Bruce Waltke’s Old Testament Theology. It is a massive book and more than a little intimidating, but still very much worth the read. After six introductory chapters, Waltke turns to Old Testament theology proper in a chapter entitled “The Gift…
In The Marketing of Evil, author David Kupelian disusses how so many of the social ills we see in our society have not merely happened, but have been actively marketed and promoted by men and women with specific, unbiblical agendas. One pearl of wisdom which Kupelian repeats throughout his book is that the person who…
I don’t often watch the extra features included on DVDs these days, but a while back I must have been bored, because I sat and watched a couple of hours of extras for a series I enjoy. I was interested to learn that the creators of this show, before they began creating episodes, spent a…
Not too long ago I received an email from Luke Muehlhauser who blogs at Common Sense Atheism. He introduced himself as “a former Christian who now writes one of the most popular atheism blogs on the ‘net,” and asked if I would be interested in a brief exchange of letters. This is not the first…
One of the things I enjoy about blogging is that a blog is, in a sense, a living media. It is a reflection of my life, of what I am thinking of at a certain time or in a certain place. Occasionally I go back and read something I wrote years ago and post it…
Today I want to share the long-awaited news about my next book. I write what I do here because I really want this process to be as transparent as possible. I would not be writing books if it were not for you–the visitor to this web site. I feel that I owe it to you…
Every year, sometime in December, I begin to think about all the books I read that year, trying to determine which ones I liked the best and always wondering just how many I actually read. Every year I’m disappointed to find that I haven’t kept very good records so I really do not know how…
If I ever attain any meaningful level of success in this bizarre, online world, I’m quite sure I’ll owe it all to LeechBlock. It’s a little tool I found about six months ago and I can say without a trace of exaggeration that it changed my life. There was a time that I was unable…
Last week saw the release of The Manhattan Declaration, a document crafted by Chuck Colson, Robert George and Timothy George and signed by a long list of Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox leaders. I have not been able to gauge the interest in the Declaration or whether it has had an immediate impact. But I have…
If you were one of the four million people to read the bestselling book Freakonomics, you will pretty well know what to expect from the long-awaited sequel SuperFreakonomics. It has five chapters, each of which stands on its own and each of which ties varied economic data into some kind of a cohesive whole. It…
Last night was one of those nights where the kids kept me up for pretty much the whole thing. This morning I tried to do some writing but my brain was still clearly lying in bed. Therefore I am going to post something I wrote a couple of years ago; it is a topic that…
While I write many book reviews, the majority of these reviews cover titles that are written on a popular level. Rarely do I look at reference material or commentaries. Yet I do receive many such books and today I want to mention some of the more notable ones that have come across my desk recently.…
Earlier this year I was asked to prepare a talk on families and technology. I was to speak to a group of adults, mostly parents of teenagers, and address issues related to digital technology. I was pleased with the challenge and was reasonably happy with the final result. As I prepared that talk I began…
I went for a walk this morning, and pretty much had the town to myself, it seemed. Few people were out and about at 5:30 in the cold, dark, pre-dawn. This was the first time this year I’ve had to wear a coat while walking and the first time I’ve been able to see my…
Some time ago, no doubt while I was awake in the middle of the night with one of the children, I saw a documentary about some weird disease that causes a patient’s skin to harden. This disease often sets in during childhood and causes the skin to become hard and shiny. I searched around to…
A couple of years ago a friend forwarded me an amazing bit of writing. It was crafted by James Russell Miller a Presbyterian pastor who lived from 1840-1912 and who pastored churches in Pennsylvania and Illinois. I assume from the first sentence that represents the opening lines of a book geared toward young people, perhaps…
Americans are debating the future of their nation’s health care and as they do so, they keep looking beyond their borders to the systems in place in other countries. And, very often, their attention rests on Canada. More often than not, at least today, it is conservatives focusing on Canada, telling stories of woe, describing…
Last week I met Rick Warren. I was in Los Angeles to speak at the Christian Web Conference (where my topic was “Tweeting Truth With Love: Grace in an Age of Instant Communication”) and at the conference I bumped into David Chrzan, Warren’s Chief of Staff. He and I spoke for quite some time–an hour…
I’ve never been mistaken for Brad Pitt. Not once. Neither has anybody ever stopped me on the street only to look disappointed, apologize and say, “I’m sorry, I thought you were Johnny Depp.” It just never happens. There’s a reason for this. Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp are remarkably handsome guys. While we all know…