For many centuries, children have been trained in voice and instruments through religious music. If a child is learning an instrument or singing, use hymns of the faith as their learning material. The more folk-like melodies of hymns are great to learn on piano or violin, for example. Both Keith and I developed our musical... Continue Reading

Books put pressure on our desires. They can teach us to want well or to want poorly, but none is neutral. Like living companions, authors act as mediators of desire; unlike them, they wield the particularly potent magic of the written word, inviting us to enter into their experiences, to participate in their worlds, to... Continue Reading

When Christians embrace their identity as God’s image-bearer, they discover what it means to embody God’s glory and goodness in every area of life. This is especially important for youth and young adults who are in the throes of identity-formation. By teaching them what it means to be iconic, we aren’t merely helping them answer... Continue Reading

If you trace the history of art and music in America, both used to be far superior. Paintings, sculptures, architecture, and music were better. Think also about Christian music. Has it gotten better or worse as time has gone on? Most of the best hymns that we have are old. Much of the modern Christian... Continue Reading

Confronted by an intellectual world for which they are not prepared, Christian college students are leaving behind their faith in worrying numbers.   Well, it just happened for the third time. This past week, I dropped off my last child at college. As might be expected, there were lots of emotions. Excitement, nervousness, fear. And... Continue Reading

The picture of a persistent conflict between science and faith is bad history. When we revisit the past to look at actual scientists and actual theologians, when we observe what they thought and said about science and faith, we discover that science and Christianity have had a more complex relationship—diverse, subtle, surprising, tangled, and messy. ... Continue Reading

In the Old Testament, it was the priests who mediated God’s presence through the rites of divine worship that Moses had received. As music came to be seen as the primary way we experience God’s presence, in the 20th century, worship leaders became a new kind of priesthood to serve the church—and, really, no one... Continue Reading

Christianity and the New Eugenics is a deep philosophical probe, not least about how we value the life of our neighbour and that of (future) children. Its author ably pinpoints the horns of the dilemma upon which society finds itself: all people are equal, but some people are more equal than others.   Evangelical Christian Dr... Continue Reading

Seeing God’s purpose in creating people with disabilities in Exodus 4 and noticing Jesus’s purpose in healing people with disabilities helps provide guardrails for our own thinking about disabilities. They are not accidental or without purpose. They are not a result of our sin or God’s apathy.    Building a Theology of Disability The Bible... Continue Reading

In the service of love, we want to get (and keep) our bodies, depending on our season of life, in the condition needed to serve God’s callings on us to love others. We want to be the kind of people who desire to do good for others, knowing that such good often requires exerting our... Continue Reading