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Category Archives: faith

Finding C. S. Lewis’s Essays

By Jeff | Published: April 22, 2013

I’m on a mission to acquire a copy of everything C. S. Lewis ever published. The standalone books aren’t too difficult but the essays are a different story. They have been published and republished many times in diverse and overlapping collections. Some collections are out of print. Some are available in the UK but not [...]

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An Invitation Back to Faith

By Jeff | Published: January 30, 2013

I’m writing to those who, like me, would have called themselves Christian as a child but who left aside that faith in the teenage or college years. My aim will be to show that the reasons—the doubts, the discoveries, the emotions—that led you to set aside faith as you came of age were, although probably [...]

Also posted in thinking | 4 Comments

The Four Moral Cultures

By Jeff | Published: January 26, 2013

A sense of foreboding has darkened my skies these last few weeks, fueled in part by what I see in the news and in part by what’s closer to home. I’ve always been one to assume the best in people. That optimism is no longer sustainable.

Also posted in culture, ethics | 3 Comments

What the Bird Said Early in the Year

By Jeff | Published: March 8, 2012

Last summer, while walking through the grounds of Oxford’s lovely Magdalene College, I came across a plaque engraved with a poem by one of my favorite authors. I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear: This year the summer will come true. This year. This year. Winds will not strip the blossom from the [...]

Posted in faith | 3 Comments

Christianity, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics

By Jeff | Published: March 3, 2012

A word of explanation. I teach a course at SMU|Guildhall on Ethics and Video Games. It is by no means a Christian course and has no explicitly Christian content. But some of the students tell me that they’re Christian. Since Christian ethics is an interest of mine, I’m keen to interact with these individuals at [...]

Also posted in Bible, ethics | 4 Comments

All the World’s a Game

By Jeff | Published: September 1, 2011

I’ve been playing a lot of Minecraft lately. Exploring its complex, primal, randomly-generated environments has helped me to firm up an intuition about games and religion—at least my religion—that I’ve been toying with for years.

Also posted in games | 5 Comments

The Christian Storyteller’s Dilemma

By Jeff | Published: February 22, 2010

There’s no good way to tell a Christian story. The gospel is perennially uncool. Any story that points to the gospel runs the risk of inheriting its uncoolness. A Christian yarn may end up sounding like a sermon. It may come across as moralizing, over-hopeful, or lacking the secular sheen that modern readers demand. A [...]

Also posted in culture, writing | 9 Comments

What Does the Bible Say about Divorce and Remarriage? (Part 2)

By Jeff | Published: December 4, 2009

Last time I listed the main biblical passages dealing with divorce and remarriage. I also previewed some of the conclusions I had come to when studying these passages. But now let’s clear our minds, forget everything we (think we) know about divorce and rediscover what the Bible says with fresh eyes. Today we’ll look at [...]

Also posted in Bible, family | Tagged Bible, divorce, marriage, remarriage | 28 Comments

What Does the Bible Say about Divorce and Remarriage? (Part 1)

By Jeff | Published: December 1, 2009

I just finished teaching a series of lessons on divorce and remarriage for the young married couples’ class at our church. The passages we studied reopened my eyes to the Bible’s surprising—and oft-ignored—teaching on these crucial and difficult topics. I thought I’d share with you the passages we considered and the insights that emerged from [...]

Also posted in Bible, family | Tagged Bible, divorce, marriage, remarriage | 33 Comments

The Sermon on the Mount

By Jeff | Published: September 14, 2009

I’m teaching a Sunday school series this semester on the Sermon on the Mount. I wanted it to be easy for those who attend the series to read the Sermon wherever they are—in the car, cooking dinner, or anywhere. So I recorded a reading, and here it is, free to use however you want to. [...]

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