For many eschatology-minded Christians, one of the "signs" that the end of the world (i.e. the return of Christ) is upon us will be a great "end times harvest" of souls... a great awakening across the globe in which the gospel spreads at a rate far greater than ever before, and all corners of the globe hear the name of Jesus. Based on verses like Matt. 24:14, many believe that Christ's return will only come when this "proclaimed throughout the whole world" thing happens.
I recently read this article in Salon about the strange recessionary phenomenon of hipsters who are on food stamps and eating well, never missing a beat with their Whole Foods-quality standards of foodie existence. They're young, they're broke, and they pay for organic salmon with government subsidies.
I recently wrote about hipster music trends for Relevant Magazine's "New Music Guide," which you can read in full (three pages worth!) here.
My grandmother, Judith Schielke, died yesterday. She had a long, full life on this earth, full of all the sorts of memories, joys, and legacies a well-lived life should leave behind. In the 27 years that I knew her, she was always full of love, always bragging about her grandkids, always ridiculously good at being a grandmother. No one could make a pecan pie like her.
On Saturday, Wheaton College—my alma mater and a sort of flagship of Christian higher education—announced that it had selected its eighth president, Philip Ryken, to replace retiring president Duane Litfin beginning July 1. Dr. Ryken is son of Wheaton professor Leland Ryken, and has been senior pastor at the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia since 2000. He’s a name I was familiar with and yet hadn’t thought about as a potential Wheaton president. But it totally makes sense. I’m extremely pleased with this choice.
I love Martin Scorsese. And I loved his latest film, Shutter Island. My full review of the film, in which I focus on its noir treatment of post-war American anxiety and quote Emily Dickinson, can be found on Christianity Today.
"Jesus was a rebel" is a favorite slogan of Christian pastors and authors trying to "reach twentysomethings," as they say. The logic? 1) Young people think Christianity is tired, boring, stale. 2) Young people are naturally rebellious and contrarian. THEREFORE... 3) Maybe Christianity will be fresh and exciting to them if it is framed in the context of subversion and rebellion.But I'm not so sure that's a sound syllogism.
Fish Tank is the first great film of 2010. Directed by Andrea Arnold, this British film (which won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2009) is a gritty—though stylishly realized—social realist film that adds a rich new entry to the impressive cinematic pantheon of explorations of the British underclass (refined by the likes of Ken Loach, Stephen Frears and Mike Leigh).
Traveling changes one's life. I'm sure anyone who has done much of it--especially abroad--would agree. There's something about the displacement and discomfort of being in an alien place, coupled with the awesomeness of seeing things you've never seen before and blowing open the doors of any prior conceptions of "what this world is." Travel enlarges one's view of existence.
As a film critic, I have to see a lot of movies that are not necessarily pleasant to sit through. Which is fine. A lot of my favorite films—and some of the most beautiful, important films of all time—would hardly be categorized as “pleasant” viewing experiences. Films like Breaking the Waves, or Requiem for a Dream, or a number of films by David Lynch, are in my view works of art, deeply disturbing though they may be.
As an entirely unscientific but perhaps accurate summary of the geographic loci of Christian hipster, here is a list of what I suggest are the ten most important cities for Christian hipsterdom. These may not be the cities with the most or the highest concentrations of Christian hipsters; They are simply the most important—for a number of reasons.
One of the most devastating and tragic earthquakes of my lifetime hit the already downtrodden nation of Haiti on Tuesday. It hurts my heart to think about the horror of such a calamity, which destroyed the capital city and killed tens of thousands of people.But in the wake of this tragedy of unimaginable scope, everyone seems to be talking about something else… Pat Robertson.
In Relevant magazine this month, there is a fascinating 14 page article ("Bringing 2020 Into Focus") in which experts weigh in on what to expect in the coming decade, in areas like the environment, social justice, politics, culture, faith and science. As the "expert" in the cultural arena, I was commissioned to forecast the trends and changes I think will be most significant in the next 10 years. To read the whole spread, click here. But below I've excerpted a few sentences from the 4 trends I highlight.
I began this millennium ten years ago today, in St. Louis, on a youth group trip to some Y2K extravaganza inside the stadium where the Rams play. In the middle of Third Day’s set (Third Day!), some friends and I ran outside so we could see the fireworks and Y2K blackouts over the St. Louis skyline at midnight. I think we got in trouble for leaving, but we didn’t care. If the world was going to end that night, we were going to witness it first hand.
