Beyond Moral Bewilderment
Tue 06 Feb 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Dallas Willard
Where is Moral Knowledge?
Senior Fellow Dallas Willard says that moral knowledge is no longer readily available to most people in the normal course of our lives. He shows why this has happened and explains by contrast how the enduring influence of Jesus on the world is due to his sound, intelligent, and testable answers to the basic questions of human life. His life and teaching is real knowledge, by which we can and should live.
The Presidential Race and Religion
Tue 06 Feb 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
Candidate affiliations and the role of ‘the religious factor’
Senior Fellow David Aikman looks a little deeper at the religious affiliation of current U.S. presidential candidates—including Clinton, McCain, Obama, Romney, Brownback, and Giuliani—and how that may affect the nomination races. With nearly half of American voters either evangelical or Catholic, faith should not be overlooked.
What to Make of China?
Fri 02 Feb 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Richard W. Ohman
Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power by David Aikman (Second edition, Regnery Publishing, December 2006), 336 pages. ISBN 1596980257
China—what to make of it? Response to this question will undoubtedly consume an ever-increasing amount of time, energy, and analysis as our new century unfolds. The context for discussing this question is becoming clear and involves at least three major themes: economic potential, political rigidity, and the nation’s soul. David Aikman’s book, Jesus in Beijing, just released in a new edition, addresses the least-discussed of these today—the nation’s soul—which may well be the most important in answering the questions about China and its future.
To Compose from Fragments
Tue 30 Jan 2007 by T. M. Moore
Creativity Is a Kingdom Calling
T. M. Moore looks at the role of creativity with the help of two recent books on the topic from Philip Johnson and Michael Kimmelman. Whatever the crisis of the moment, we are yet called to create a better world from the fragments before us.
More Than Human
Tue 23 Jan 2007 • Responses: 3 • by David Cook
“Research is too important to be left to big business and scientists on their own.”
A new face transplant is but the latest in the never-ending search for cures for the diseases and accidents that plague humankind. But what begins with the best of intentions in relieving pain, distress, and suffering can be abused and used for other ends and purposes than originally intended.
The Folly of New Year Resolutions
Thu 04 Jan 2007 • Responses: 11 • by David Aikman
“Why do we repeat this folly, when empirical evidence shows that statements of a desire to change, in and of themselves, almost never cause people to change their behavior in actuality?”
The turkey has been digested, the gifts put away (or put on, if they are clothes), and the wrapping paper thrown out. After the Christmas gustatory extravaganza, it’s time for a few days of slow movement, of writing thank-you letters, and self-congratulatory exhalation. Christmas has been survived once more and life can continue its uneventful way forward.
But no. Within a week of Christmas many people find themselves practicing yet another ancient cultural ritual, the challenge of New Year Resolutions. The end of one year and the beginning of another always offers two opportunities: to look back at the previous twelve months and ponder the ups and downs of that period; and to look ahead to the next and wonder what can be done differently then. By the office water cooler, over coffee in a friend’s office, on the phone late at night with a close friend, conversations year after year turn to the subject of New Year Resolutions.
A Season to Laugh
Thu 21 Dec 2006 • Responses: 1 • by Dan Russ
The Christmas season should remind us that the very quality of time has been transformed. Time is now on our side.
The Bible recounts the unfolding comedy of redemption with its endless zigzags of how God created in the beginning, is redeeming in the meantime, and (in his own timing) will consummate his creation in the end. By comedy I mean that perspective on life, best known in comic stories, that sees life first and finally as a good gift from a good God. It is this same good God that we celebrate during the season of Christmas for having entered history, not only to redeem persons but to redeem time itself.
It is both profoundly comic and really funny to believe that an infinitely wise and all-powerful God could create everything from nothing and then choose to redeem it all through graciously loving his creation back to himself. It takes a bit of a fool to believe that God should do this through particular persons like Sarah, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Hannah, Ruth, David, Hosea, Mary of Galilee, and Jesus of Nazareth. And if we can swallow the story up to this point, then could we believe that such truth would be turned over to a group of fishermen, obscure Jews, an excommunicated rabbi, and a motley crew of redeemed humanity called the Church?
The Paradox of the Pursuit of Happiness
Fri 15 Dec 2006 • Responses: 1 • by Wilfred M. McClay
In today’s culture, not only are you unhappy, your unhappiness is your own fault.
It’s almost impossible to speak about “happiness” in a general way without sounding like a child, or a cynic, or more likely a purveyor of tired and shallow truisms. The problem is that while happiness is a subject of central importance to our existence, and a matter of irrepressibly consuming interest, many of the most reliable truths about it may easily come across as disappointingly flat and trite and commonplace. But there is one maxim that is the exception to this rule: Happiness is a matter of having the right expectations.
Because of this, ideas have everything to do with happiness. The pattern of expectations to which the pursuit of happiness conforms itself at any given time—that age’s vision of feasible felicity, so to speak, and the means one uses to reach it—is itself a product of the dominant ideas of the time in question: ideas about life, death, God, nature, causality, moral responsibility, and human possibility. In a word, what we believe about the world’s structure and meaning will determine what we think happiness is, and how we can act to gain it for ourselves. What we believe provides the basic structure of what we expect.
Worries About Europe
Wed 13 Dec 2006 by Al McDonald
A response from the founding chairman of the Trinity Forum.
Dear Trinity Forum Friends:
This is to commend the fine essay by David Aikman on “Civilization and Crisis and Europe’s Choices.” It is a superbly reasoned piece that I fully endorse. My only reservation is that the threat of Islamic extremism is certainly as grave as David suggests and he may have even understated the danger.
My worries about Europe are even greater than David’s expressed concerns. I suspect Europe’s only chance to counter the infiltration and ultimate force of the Islamic youth movement and immigration is with a solid Christian revival as David mentioned has happened before historically. Yet, at the moment I see little acceptance in Europe by the general public or governmental officials of Christianity or even its basic tenets, ignoring almost completely the deep Christian roots that have shaped Europe’s enormous success near the pinnacle of civilization for many generations.
A Short History of Happiness
Tue 12 Dec 2006 by Wilfred M. McClay
Fragile, but not Illusory
We want happiness, but the harder we chase it, the further off it seems. How can we talk about it without sounding cynical or trite? Senior Fellow Bill McClay, in a cheerful but deeply realistic piece, looks to history and human nature—and some Russian literature—to help us understand it and to bring our expectations about happiness into line.
