The television commercial for the end-of-the-world extravaganza “2012” – complete with images of the earth being covered in a flood – prompted the following theological discussion between my 7 and 4-year-old daughters.
“Look at all the water,” the younger one observed, her big eyes even larger than usual.
“Don’t worry,” the older one reassured her. “God promised [...]

If identity is the new guilt, then idolatry is the new sin.
Protestants used to claim that Roman Catholics were idolaters because they had statues in their buildings. A couple of years ago an elder from a conservative Protestant denomination explained to me how Vietnamese people more easily came to Roman Catholicism from Buddhism because both [...]

A friend of mine is a chaplain for a NFL team. He and his wife spend time with players and their families. He prays with them, mentors them, encourages, challenges, and teaches them.
He’s not mentioned in Time Magazine’s recent write-up on NFL chaplains, but the roles sound similar.
The Time magazine piece seems to emphasize the [...]

What does “The Wizard of Oz” mean to you?
We have occasion to ask because yet another edition of the 1939 classic has been released on DVD, this time to celebrate the movie’s 70th anniversary.
“The Wizard of Oz” has maintained classic status for all those years because kids return to it as adults, both to share [...]

I’m a gadget nerd whose Verizon contract is almost up so I’m shopping for my next phone. Here’s an ad from HTC.

Tim Keller quotes Tom Shippey in Counterfeit Gods as calling Sauron’s ring in The Lord of the Rings “a psychic amplifier”. They take our heart’s good desires and amplify them to idolatrous proportions (pg. [...]

(Guest blogger: Todd Hertz.  Todd is the E-Marketing Manager for ReFrame Media.  That basically means he works to build online relationships plus develop web and social media strategies.  He formally worked as the editor for multiple projects at Christianity Today.)
2009 has been a big year for celebrity confessions and apologies. The most notable cases:  Alex [...]

I’m not sure where it started – perhaps studio publicists initially fed the convenient misinformation – but nearly every review of “A Serious Man” has described the film as a modern version of the Book of Job.
It makes me wonder if anyone has read Job lately.
Sure, the central figure in “A Serious Man,” the latest [...]

I was reading an article from the Religious News Service talking about a new wave of atheism that isn’t completely down on religion.  Make no mistake, the so called “Atheism 3.0” still denies the existence of God, but there is some respect for the values that come from believing in God.
Bruce Sheiman is the author [...]

(Guest Blogger: Dave Trout.  Dave is the host of the nationally syndicated program ‘Under the Radar’ which features the best in under-appreciated Christian music.  He also writes a weekly column called ‘The Gourmet Music Report.’  In this post, he’s taking a little break from music to talk about culture.)
Should a pastor friend of mine have [...]

There is a reason we laugh so eagerly at zombies, as audiences have been gleefully doing with the horror comedy “Zombieland.”
Is there a more fitting symbol for our own inescapable mortality than zombies – decaying, dismembered figures that relentlessly pursue the living? Zombies have officially haunted us since 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead,” but [...]