Fifth in a series. We have seen that the biblical epic of Babel does not end with the original Babel account, but is central to the call of Abram and the agony of exile. And we have seen that the epic of Babel has much to say about our daily work: Good work done well is a temptation to pride and…
“It’s not enough to just build tools. They need to be used for good,” said a repentant and scared Mark Zuckerberg before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees. Facebook embodies today’s cultural zeitgeist, and its disregard for privacy coupled with its mammoth influence have caused our nation to question how its unhealthy practices are impacting culture. Makoto Fujimura, surely, is…
Getting richer is not making us happier. At the 2018 ON faculty retreat, Brian Fikkert of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development spoke to why that is, why it represents a radical challenge to the narratives that dominate the discipline of economics, and how the church can help people recover a holistic anthropology as a basis for economic thinking and…
For all of the national conversations about a universal income, unemployment rates, the threat of automation, politicians’ promises for more jobs, etc., the daily experiences of individuals and their jobs can get lost. That’s one reason why Studs Terkel’s 40+ year-old interviews with American workers still resonate today. Terkel published his iconic book in 1974. It was called Working: People Talk…
By Greg Forster: part eight of a series. I believe I have discovered the secret of accommodation paradigm churches. They are not marketing gimmicks. They are spiritual reclamation projects. They make the transformative grace of God imaginable to those for whom grace has become unimaginable. The faith and work movement needs to engage in similar reclamation just as much as it…
This long-form essay is reprinted from The Rabbit Room. By Jennifer Trafton Let me say right off the bat that this post is full of spoilers. It oozes spoilers. Spoilaphobic reader, beware. I want to talk about La La Land and that perplexing, polarizing, absolutely perfect ending. To set the scene: I went into the movie cold, soon after it…
By Greg Forster: part seven of a series. In my last post I talked about how the underlying theology of fortification paradigm churches leads to cultural puritanism. Here are three specific ways fortification paradigm churches can overcome this: The Past: Where dominance paradigm churches overestimate both the moral and religious integrity of the American experiment, fortification churches tend to underestimate…
By Greg Forster; part six of a series. “They told us, ‘this is our culture,’ but we told them, ‘this is God’s word.’” I was hearing a talk from a leader in the fortification-paradigm church I used to attend. As I stressed in my last post, this church did a great job of helping people overcome addictions and enslaving sins.…
In his very accessible and practical book, Fruitfulness on the Frontlines, London’s Mark Greene offers a very helpful framework for Christians trying to live out their faith. The framework is notable for at least three reasons. First, it is broadly applicable. Believers of any age, in any vocation (paid or unpaid), in any sector (public, private, or nonprofit), and…
By Greg Forster; part one of a series. “The Three Kingdoms” can refer to the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. It can refer to the tripartite division of China in the third century. But I’m using it to refer to three inadequate ways modern American churches approach the kingdom of God and its relationship to the kingdoms of human civilization…
The Green Room 