The left is full of crock. If you're reading this, you probably already knew that, but it's one of those things that needs to truly be hammered home as often as possible. Because otherwise, the left is liable to try and pull the sort of nonsense that MSNBC talking head...

MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted Sunday that Democrats are leaderless and "in the wilderness" following their shellacking by Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans. Politico's Eugene Daniels added that there is a "huge fight" coming between the Democrats' old guard (i.e. former House...

President-elect Donald Trump's landslide victory in the 2024 election has elevated him to the status of a world-historical figure. Thus, it should come as no surprise when the president-elect draws comparisons to famous conquerors who knew how to wield the power they had earned by virtue of achieving immense popularity....

The prog supergroup were at their creative peak when they created the 1973 epic that took the world by storm, despite the apparent hordes of critics

17-year-old Afghan Muslim asylum seeker entered the Chapel of Mercy and undressed the Black Madonna in front of the praying pilgrims. He wrapped himself in the statue’s clothes, put on the crown and brandished the sceptre until police arrived to take him into custody. BlueWin (h/t Angela S) The historic statue, which dates back to […]

The holidays can remind us not only of who or what we've lost but of moments that still sting with disappointment, regret, or sadness.

“I’m going to read some books and prove you wrong!” The young man who said this was an American exchange student in the comparative religions class I teach at a university in Prague, Czech Republic. We were working through a unit on postmodern religious relativism. I’d spent the better part of 90 minutes laying out a series of arguments that showed how relativism makes no intellectual sense and is actually intolerant of religious belief unless that belief is relativistic (“All paths lead to God”). None of that mattered to this young man. What mattered was that relativism made sense for him, and therefore, whatever its logically fatal flaws, it was still true—for him. He perceived freedom and the good life as intimately bound up with seeing the world in just that way. If you’ve had discussions about religion and spirituality with someone who sees life differently, you know what I’m talking about. People seem harder to convince nowadays; they think with their passions. However, this isn’t to suggest evidence and arguments are useless—consider how closely people pay attention to research around the climate crisis and the pandemic and adjust their lifestyles accordingly. But when it comes to ultimate beliefs, they seem strangely buffered against rational argumentation. Their “basement level” of worldview responds differently, and so a different approach is needed. Does this mean apologetics is useless? RIP apologetics? No, but it does mean we need to rethink the narrow bandwidth that apologetics generally employs. Most Christians define apologetics (if they even know what it means) as “rationally persuading someone of the truth of the Christian faith through arguments and evidence.” That approach is too blinkered, for it fails to account for the wider context where people are persuaded and beliefs are formed. For instance, Psalm 34:8 doesn’t say, “String together a set of logical propositions and come to understand that the LORD’s existence is both logically coherent and backed by empirical evidences.” It says, “Taste and see [both sensory words] that the LORD is good [i.e., his character is trustworthy and beautiful].” It isn’t enough for the gospel to be seen as true; it must be seen and felt by our conversation partners as deeply good, a vision of reality that’s life-giving and beautiful and provides hope. Our apologetics, in other words, needs imagination. Defining Imagination What is the imagination, this linchpin of apologetics? In my book Oasis of Imagination, I describe the imagination as a human power that orientates us—mind and body—in the world, through which we perceive and create. It orientates us both individually and collectively, so we can speak of a “collective imagin­ation” or “imaginary landscape.” The imagination inspires us to create, and it colours our experience of the world and our assumptions about reality. The imagination mediates: we shape our world through it, and through it our world shapes us. The imagination is what Paul alludes to in his beautiful prayer in Ephesians 1 as “the eyes of [the heart]” (v. 18), the lens through which we see and feel the world and from which we create out into the world. Some Christians view imagination with suspicion—or ignore it entirely. Many see imagination as a disposable accessory of life, something for children and artists that the rest of us can get along fine without. It’s like the appendix: an organ that’s there, but unnecessary. Theologian Trevor Hart wrote that the imagination is less like the appendix and more like the human circulatory system. It’s as deeply woven into our existence as our heart, arteries, and veins, and without it, we wither. Why We Need Imaginative Apologetics One symptom of an emaciated imagination is a lack of hope, which is in especially short supply these days. I scroll memes to see what people (at least the denizens of this particular corner of social media) think and feel about life. I notice trends, a “vibe” deeply infused with despair at the state of the world, whether it’s one’s own dysfunctional family, romantic failures, politics, climate, or the economy. The despair runs deep. There’s a genre of memes that jokingly glorifies death and suicide. Doctor: “You have only two weeks to live.” Me: “Promise?” People, particularly young people, need hope. But it must be a credible hope that connects with our non-Christian friends not only as true but as answering their deepest desires. Sixteenth-century mathematician and apologist Blaise Pascal famously said, “Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.” We focus exclusively on the “true” part and neglect the “lovable” part. Our goal should be for our conversation partners to connect so strongly with what we share that they think deep down, Man, would I love to experience the world through this person’s eyes. I want to be able to love those around me with that kind of love. We mustn’t connect only with the mind, through intellectual arguments. We must connect to the heart, passions, and desires through the imagination. This is a taller order than we usually strive for in apologetics. We must rethink our definition of apologetics to include more imaginative aspects such as art and poetry. Try this definition on for size: Apologetics is the art of presenting a vision of reality rooted in the God of the Bible that resonates with unbelievers as deeply true, beautiful, and good, while equipping Christians to respond to competing visions of reality with grace and conviction. Note that the line between apologetics and imaginative, artistic, and poetic creativity is fuzzy—because it needs to be. Persuading someone in a post-Christian culture is deeply relational (we ourselves must be kind and good) and captures imaginations. It presents a vision of the world that resonates with the lost, a vision they can lean into as good and beautiful. To do this well takes imagination. How to Engage the Imagination in Apologetics The faith of a Christian or non-Christian flows from and is an expression of an imaginative grasp of how the world is and how it should be. Apologetics must appeal to the imagination. How can we do this? How do we persuasively engage imaginations in a post-Christian culture? First, we must abandon our obsession with the culture wars that so effectively create resentment among non-Christians (and ex-Christians). We may not always agree with mainstream culture’s moral tenor, but we must be aware of our cultural posture. Our non-Christian friends need Jesus first and foremost. An attitude and approach that seeks to conquer out of fear for the nation’s moral fiber too often only puts obstacles in the way of those who need Jesus most. We must be missionaries to, rather than warriors against, our culture. We need not and must not abandon a biblical moral stance, but our non-Christian friends must know intuitively that we love them and are for them, that our vision of the good life includes them. Second, apologetics must recover the doctrine of common grace: the idea that there’s goodness, truth, and beauty to be found in culture created by non-Christians. Be willing to appreciate aspects of secular cultural works, for that’s our point of contact, the place where non-Christian hearts resonate. Of course, there will be elements you must critique. But before critiquing, find places where non-Christian and Christian hearts find common ground, and locate the deeper significance of those places from a Christian imaginative perspective. Third, realize that engaging non-Christian culture isn’t enough. We must get better at contributing positively to the culture at large, particularly through the arts and entertainment. While cultures are built in a thousand different ways, churches must intentionally invest in the creatives in their pews. Decades of underinvestment have created a Christian subculture whose works are too often sentimental kitsch or manipulative propaganda. We’ve largely defaulted on our aesthetic witness before a watching world. This underinvestment has also made creatives feel unwelcome in our churches. Creatives need churches who love and support them well while they do the difficult work of being the interface between the church and the world, addressing the collective imagination of a post-Christian culture and trying to “plant oases,” works that stir up the imaginations of Christians and non-Christians alike to refresh, challenge, comfort, and provoke—works that open a space for conversation about the things that matter most. Practically, this might look like hosting movie discussion nights, talking with friends about what’s creating buzz in popular culture, or encouraging budding artists in the church. Whatever form it takes, let’s widen our view of what makes for effective Christian persuasion. Once more . . . with feeling.

Four years ago, I asked an acquaintance to coffee. He’d begun his career after graduating from Harvard by joining the staff of the Chicago Tribune as an editorial writer. Over the next four decades, he’d risen to become a member of the Tribune’s editorial board and a nationally syndicated columnist. After small talk, I jumped into my questions. “Who can I trust?” “How can I know what’s really going on?” “Is Hunter Biden’s laptop real?” I explained to my friend that I’d spent the last few years consuming news from both sides of the aisle, hoping to figure out what was going on. I complained that it hadn’t worked. “Instead of just being confused,” I said, “I’m also exhausted and angry. Who can I trust to report the truth?” I didn’t expect his response. “Mike, it’s worse than you think, and I’m more frustrated than you are.” Through that conversation and my subsequent research, I’ve discovered four truths that won’t surprise you: We’re being chased by a never-ending stream of news. The quality and trustworthiness of much of this news is lower than it was 10 years ago. Some has been designed to reinforce our views and keep us online so we maximize the news site’s revenue stream. You and I are less able than we realize to see how bad-quality news misleads us. Even from trustworthy news sources, little of what constitutes breaking news deals with ultimate issues. In his 2021 book, Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs notes that those who “traffic in high information societies” like ours often lack the “personal density”—a kind of mental maturity gained from knowing history—they need to live well. I think he’s right. I also think the kind of things he recommends to gain personal density—such as reading novels and biographies, studying history, and learning to lament—are invaluable. But I believe the primary way forward is to cultivate a more vibrant relationship with God the Father through Christ his Son. If you’re going to become the thoughtful, wise, nonanxious person you want to be—and that your friends and family need you to be—you must move from seeing the gospel through the lens of the news to seeing the news through the lens of the gospel. Neither the state of today’s news nor the state of a heart addicted to it is in good shape. Is there a way to make things better? I think we can take several steps right now to manage this broken news moment. Three stand out to me. 1. Consume less news. After starting my morning with an hour of silence, devotional reading, and prayer, I skim the headlines of the The Wall Street Journal. I may dip into a story or two before turning to sports, but I’m in and out of “breaking news” in five minutes. I may glance at the Journal a few other times during the day, but that’s it. No social media. No TV news. If you find this unthinkable—or irresponsible—consider the news habits of John Huey, the former editor in chief at Time magazine. In “All the News I Intend to Quit,” an opinion piece he wrote for the The Washington Post, Huey said, Having spent more than 40 years reporting, writing and editing the news, I am surprised to conclude that overconsumption of the news, at least in the forms I’ve been gorging on it since 2016, is neither good for my emotional well-being nor essential to the health of the republic. . . . There isn’t really enough of it, good or bad, to fill the 24/7 maw opened up by cable news, talk radio and social media. . . . I don’t intend to stop fretting about my country. Nor will I give up reading the newspapers and magazines I deem essential to understanding the world around me. But I am planning a crash news diet. Are you consuming too much news? Why not turn it off for a week and see how that goes? Better yet, why not replace news reading with more Bible reading? In the last pages of my book How Do You Know, I share several ways I revamped my devotional practices during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. While what I’d been doing was enough for the normal-life chaos I’d been navigating, they weren’t adequate for the pandemic. Likewise, your devotional habits may not be sufficient for this politically polarized, culturally divisive, broken news moment. After Mother Teresa told Malcolm Muggeridge that she didn’t listen to the news or read newspapers because “when she did she got confused,” the great British journalist said, “It occurred to me that this was why she knew so much more about what was going on in the world than those who tried to keep up with current events by studying newspapers, listening to the radio and watching television. She was in touch with what really matters.” To put a sharper point on it: If you’re spending five minutes a day reading the Bible but two hours listening to Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow, it’s no wonder you’re acting more like their disciple than Jesus Christ’s. 2. Find, follow, and support good journalism. Limit who you trust. For a few years, I consumed both liberal and conservative perspectives to triangulate the truth. It didn’t work. All I got for my efforts was angry, confused, and exhausted. I now believe that rather than triangulating the news, we’re better off identifying a couple of trustworthy media organizations and relying on them to do the triangulation. (My son works on one, The Pour Over.) Let them monitor what’s going on in the world, vet the sources, and tell you what’s worth knowing. 3. Strengthen yourself in the Lord. Spend less time on the news and more intentional time with the Lord. In 1 Samuel 30, David was navigating a particularly vexing crisis. Though the prophet Samuel had anointed David as king years earlier, Saul still occupied the throne. Worse yet, because Saul was threatened by David’s popularity and skill, he kept trying to have David killed. So the future king lived on the run. By the end of 1 Samuel, David had gathered a group of outcasts around him and was paying his bills by hiring this group out as a mercenary force for foreign kings. But that isn’t the half of it. On the day in question, David and his men returned from a raid to discover their camp had been looted and their wives and children kidnapped. 1 Samuel 30:3–6 (NASB) says, When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep. Now David’s two wives had been taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite. Moreover, David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God. You don’t need much imagination to see how bad things were. David hadn’t only been chased out of Israel and reduced to working as a foreign vigilante—his family had also been kidnapped and his friends were threatening to kill him. I’ve had bad days, but nothing like this. So what did David do? He strengthened himself in the Lord. Of course, this isn’t all he did. He eventually rallied his men, rescued their families, and restored order. But all that came second. The first thing David did was manage his own heart by leaning more fully into God. I’ve pondered this passage over the years, both because it places whatever challenge I’m facing in perspective and because I need to lead myself first. As a Christ follower, I must attend to my heart before I engage with other people or in other arenas.