A Nerdy Post about Writing: An Excerpt from My Sent Folder
A non-Christian friend I talked to many times on the bus asked me a question about whether or not he should take an online fiction-writing opportunity he'd been handed. I appreciated being asked. He's a neat guy with real talent. I replied, and it gave me an opportunity to talk a little about writing in a way readers and writers might find helpful… I have always felt averse to writerly self-promotion, partly because Jesus warned against putting myself forward pridefully (Luke 14:7–11) and...
Is the CSB Suitable for Expository Preaching? An Excerpt from my Sent Folder
A reader who attends Boyce College, the undergraduate school of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: I'm not going to keep you, this is the only question I will ask and then I'll simply follow you via social media; can I trust the CSB as an expository preacher? Interested in your thoughts (which will remain here). Thanks, Mark. A writer who doesn't wish his thoughts to remain there: Great question. I would say two things: You have to trust someone, or a group of someones, until you can...
A Must-Read Piece Featuring a Number of My Favorite Writers
I read pretty much everything Alan Jacobs writes. This piece is at the top of the list of must-reads. It’s his assessment of the major storm between two conservatives: Sohrab Ahmari and David French. Let me try to spin Jacobs’ basic argument into the way I would put it. Insofar as liberal proceduralism is indeed on the rocks, and is serving mainly as an impolite fiction, a fig leaf covering progressive illiberalism, it’s bad and should be rejected along the Stanley Fishian...
Ron Horton: A Biblical Approach to Objectionable Elements
I had only one class with Ron Horton, Aesthetics—and I had to drop it when my little daughter was born. But I listened to enough lectures to know that the man was brilliant, and I read and enjoyed his book, Mood Tides. I respected him greatly. He died—into new life—yesterday. And the greatest honor I can do him is to try to give his words another hearing. I read the following essay as a freshman, I think, and didn't get it. I read it much later, as an adult, and found it to be full of wisdom....
Review: Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion
What first attracted me to Rebecca McLaughlin’s Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion was the title. I actually assumed it was a non-Christian book. Second was the author: I read a piece of hers on TGC that I liked. Third, to be honest, was that Crossway was willing to give me a free copy in exchange for an honest review, no strings attached. So here I go: McLaughlin is easy to read, has done some good homework, has a compelling personal story, and writes...