Category Archives: Culture-Economics-Society

Write As Children of the Light

Posted on 1 October 2021 by Benj

Our work as Christians within the academic system should be redemptive. For those of us at early stages of our career, perhaps this means that we should seek—never at the sacrifice of integrity, always resisting corruption and mediocrity—to obtain the credibility within the system that would allow us to make reforms. Those in middle or later stages of their careers may take more active steps to restructure systems of publishing, to lift up and reward others for talent and virtue, and perhaps even to create alternate structures where God’s truth can be drawn out into the light, where all can benefit. Continue reading →

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“Ancient” Re-Post: Screens, Fatherhood and Distractions

Posted on 6 July 2021 by Benj

Screens let me be “present” in some limited way with my sister and her husband across the country or across the world. But they also make me absent from those actually in my presence. Screens connect and disconnect. Continue reading →

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Guest Post: Why Go Back to Church?

Posted on 4 July 2021 by Benj

Jesus wants His people to love one another. To love others, you sometimes have to be in the same room. Sometimes you have to hold their babies, wash their dishes, or look them straight in their unmediated eyes as you listen to them share their story. You have to stay in the room when the stories get rambly. You might have to get up and get a box of tissues. You may have to lay hands on them and pray for them. Yes, sometimes you have to touch them. Continue reading →

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Pandemic Sermon: Job 42:10-17 and Isaiah 49:14-23, “Receiving Double from YHWH’s Hand”

Posted on 27 June 2021 by Benj

COVID-19 and the reaction to it has caused deep divisions in our societies, and right down the middle of Christian communities as well….When we come back to meeting together, as a full church, or as an LCC family, or as societies reckoning with the effectiveness of policies (as I hope there will be investigations and evaluations, based in actual scientific understandings of how these viruses work that we had at the time), there will be anger and resentment that has to be dealt with….If we don’t, we could have a permanent division in our communities, which would be tragic.
…As we build back our lives, and build back our church community, can we think of our process as parallel to this—and also see it as an opportunity? Can we articulate our losses, express our anger and our sorrow, hear the anger and sorrow of others, and pray that God would help us to direct it and deal with it appropriately? Can we accept that nothing happens outside of God’s knowledge or control? Continue reading →

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Online “Church”: Are the Kids Really Fine?

Posted on 24 June 2021 by Benj

The older generations, having come of age in cultures of society, church and education that are formed by reading physical books and encountering peers and authority figures in physical space and time, are better equipped to transfer those educational, spiritual, and social habits into the digital realm and to cope with the shortcomings of digital media, than are younger generations. Put succinctly, we think the kids are fine (even perhaps doing better than we are with all this Zooming!), but they’re not. Continue reading →

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Online “Church”: United, or Merely Simultaneous?

Posted on 19 June 2021 by Benj

If the entirety of my pre-COVID worship experience has been simply passive and receptive (hearing and observing the preaching and the musicians) while I am standing or sitting beside someone else in the assembly with whom I am barely acquainted—then there is little benefit to the incidental simultaneity of our passive reception of the information presented to us by the pastor or the worship leader. If this is all that church has been, then it is not surprising that people would feel little loss by introducing the mediating technology, i.e., receiving preaching and music while at home—with or without a pandemic. Continue reading →

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How Did We Get Here? The Pre-COVID Road to “Online Church”

Posted on 13 June 2021 by Benj

Even before the pandemic, “word” and “image” had been technologized with some extension of their reach—but with increasing fluidity, and at the cost of “presence,” which cannot be replicated. Technology makes us feel as though we can replicate presence, but it rather enables us to persist in practices that do not really satisfy or edify. Continue reading →

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Halting In-Person Worship: Christian Liberty? Obedience to Romans 13?

Posted on 12 June 2021 by Benj

Christians are obliged to respect civil authorities (Rom 13:1–7), and should be willing to lay down our rights for the sake of others (1 Cor 8:9–13). If the government says we may not meet or should not meet, mustn’t we take that into account? Continue reading →

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Franklin on Why the Christian Response to COVID-19 Must Change

Posted on 11 June 2021 by Benj

It is my pleasure to commend to you Dr Franklin’s recent piece, “Metaphysics, Medicine and Modern Science: Why the Christian Response to COVID-19 Must Change.” Continue reading →

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Science, Worship, and an “Epistemology of Love”

Posted on 6 June 2021 by Benj

So far we have seen that a modern scientific worldview has difficulty accounting for the immaterial “essence” of human personhood, and therefore cannot meaningfully balance the risks of physical and spiritual harms. In this installment, we compare “scientific” ways of knowing (epistemology) with other means of knowing that are just as important for human life and purpose: knowing through love, and knowing through ritual. Knowing truth about God and ourselves by these means gives us purpose and hope. Continue reading →

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