We live in a culture that teaches us to protect ourselves from criticism. Some of us choose to hide behind a false front, presenting the world with an image that is different than how we feel inside. Some find fault in others as a way to avoid the same tendencies in themselves. We all distract ourselves and avoid the hard questions about who we are and the decisions...

When I was in high school, I was deathly afraid of public speaking. I had a project due in a history class that required that I make an oral presentation, and the closer the deadline came, the more I started to panic. I avoided the problem by cutting class—several times in a row. I'm...

The gods of ancient Rome and Greece didn't care if you lived a moral life. They only demanded that you honor them. Honoring them sometimes meant engaging in the same kind of highly questionable behavior they did. Socrates got in trouble and was branded an atheist because he pointed out that the gods were just expressions of people’s immoral behavior. They were an excuse, a way for people...

One of the most surprising developments in the Weinstein sexual exploitation allegations is its effect in causing so many to come forward with similar allegations against other alleged abusers, and in particular, those in the Hollywood industry. Some have suggested that the courage of a few inspired them, but I think it’s at least as much the burden of the pain they’ve carried all these years, and the desire to be rid of it.

Mainstream American culture shows an increasingly permissive attitude towards non-marital sex. Outside of a few ethnic subgroups (communities which have morals that are resistant to these changes) the percentages show a rapid and significant shift away from traditional Christian norms regarding sex over the last 40 years. In the early 70s, for example, 29% of Americans believed premarital sex was “not wrong...

I was in San Diego with my kids last year, and we were spending the day in Balboa Park. As we were walking around, we noticed a table set up in the courtyard, run by a group of atheists. They were there to share their opinion on why Christianity was false. It was a kind of counter-evangelism; or maybe better to say, evangelism to their own brand...

Imagine if you could have fun all day, from morning until evening. Not just contentment, but actual fun. Imagine if that fun didn't make any physical demands on you, aside from the attention it required. You don't even have to leave your bedroom. I'm not talking about television, but we may have found ourselves whiling away hour after hour when...

The world around us is adapting to electronic media and information technology. How we think about community, experience the world, share our lives with others, communicate with the people we care about, value ourselves, and even consider what counts as a "place" and why we don't feel the need to actually be there—all of these have changed over the last two decades. We're on a fast-moving train that isn't going to stop. Christianity...

Have you ever spent a lot of time and energy (and maybe money) on something, and then later, for whatever reason, lost interest in it? I'm sure most of us who are Boomers* and Gen X wish we could take back and repurpose the many thousands...

Shame is a strange thing; it can be regarded in two completely different ways. If you search for it on Amazon, you will find hundreds of books to help you relieve yourself of it. It is the negative, convicting emotion that we have violated a moral standard. Psychologists provide guidance in relieving yourself from it because it can lead to unhealthy, borderline behaviors if it's not managed properly. Our culture...

This Bud Light commercial from 1995 (it was the first in a series of commercials) made the expression, “I love you, man” part of popular culture. The thing that made the commercial so hilarious and compelling...

This quote, from one of C.S. Lewis's great works, is part of a letter written by the demon Screwtape to the junior demon Wormwood. The “Enemy” mentioned here is God. I have been worried about the future, at various points over the years. To such a degree that I have had difficulty doing anything else. I have some things on my plate right now which make me anxious. As I stumbled on this...