Do-It-Yourself Religion

I see this more and more often. Faith is no longer something we share among a community of believers, but a possession in the hands of an individual who will shape it to his or her liking. Perhaps this is the religious outworking of “liquid modernity,” a culture in which structures change so quickly that…

On Fundamentalisms

The Christian movement we call “fundamentalism” began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, largely in reaction to the rise of modernity and liberal theology. Its adherents came from a variety of Christian traditions, including established mainline denominations and independent churches that we would today call “non-denominational.” Proponents of this diverse anti-modernist movement joined…

Politics and the Christian Mind

The longer I study Christian Scripture, the more convinced I am that the Christian mind is a peculiar oddity. (I’ve written on this before, here, here, and here.) Put differently, through what Wesley called the “ordinances of God”–which include worship, prayer, the Lord’s Supper, the reading of Scripture, and fasting–our habits of mind become different…

The Christian Mind, Part 1

I’ve become more and more interested lately in the way Christians think–the way we see the world, assess our circumstances, analyze problems, and make decisions. I’m particularly interested in the ways in which Christian ways of thinking differ from non-Christian ways. Here begins a series of posts on the Christian mind.  The Christian mind is…