Category: Essays
Peak Middle-earth: Why Mount Doom is not the Climax of The Lord of the Rings
Peter Jackson’s film version of Tolkien’s The Return of the King was a huge commercial and...
The Crown Because of the Cross: The Inseparability of Suffering and Joy in the Thought of C.S. Lewis
Once upon a time, a long time ago, a child’s mother became sick, very sick. She knocked on death’s...
Against Pessimism
As You Like It (or Not) This is a sermon on pessimism. There will be no footnotes, but you can...
Lewis, Lear, and The Four Loves
“William Shakespeare is not generally thought of as a religious apologist,” so began the call for...
Disclosures of Form: Theological Poetics and Shakespearean Analogies in Wright and Guite
Shakespearean references are a familiar sight in English-speaking Christian writing and preaching....
Literary Apologetics: A Spell for the Refreshment of Spirit
“I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a storyteller.”[1] ~...
A Reason for Our Hope: The Role of Fairy Stories in Christian Apologetics
One of the objectives of Christian apologetics is to heed Peter’s instruction to “always be...
(Re)Considering the Planet Narnia Thesis
The “Nova Effect” of the Planet Narnia Thesis[1] With mainstream media attention, a BBC...
We Have Sinned and Grown Old: A Reflection on the Imagination and Motherhood
“I don’t want to tell you. It’s embarrassing.” My nine-year-old son uttered these words recently...
Where Are All the Great Christian Films?
If you’re a Christian and you love movies, it’s a question you’ve probably asked at some point....
The Witch and the Horror of Eternal Consequences
Despite the growing critical group hug, the horror genre remains on the cultural fringes. Given...
Obeying the Rules of the Game
Games require boundaries. I play a sport called power soccer. It is a four on four contest between power wheelchair users on a basketball court. We attach metal guards to the front of our chairs and strike oversized soccer balls at speeds up to thirty miles per hour.
The Arrow that Is Not Aimed: Flow in the Art of Archery and Writing
Holding a bow at full draw, there is a moment when time stands still. It’s only you, the pin, and the target. Everything around you has fallen away. The universe is silent, holding its breath.
Take Me Out to the Ballgame: How Baseball Can Restore Our Senses and Our Souls
Rest, respite, relaxation. Leisure. Many people equate rest and leisure exclusively with bodily rest, kicking back in a recliner after a long day at the office, or spending a week on a beach, cabana boys bringing you drinks – and that does have its time and place.
Leisure the Basis of Education: Applying the Sabbath Principle to the Classroom
One of the best pieces of advice I have received regarding education came in the form of a question posed at a summer conference for classical Christian education in 2021.
In the Image of a Playful God
God is also playful and desires a real, intimate connection with humankind and creation.
Fly Fishing and the Fall
I am a fly fisherman and a broken man – broken by nature, and a fly fisherman by choice.
Leisurely Rambles: Hiking & Birding as Sacred Play
A few years ago, I was privileged to stay in a grand old Virginia inn along the Shenandoah. As I stepped through the stately oak doors and entered the lobby, it felt as if time had paused in history’s Regency period.
Sea Reflections
What brings you a sense of stillness and calm? Perhaps a sunrise, cup of coffee, tidy...
The Curse of Gnosticism and the Cure of Play: Why Leisure is Essential for Spiritual Health
Many Christians raised in American evangelicalism struggle to practice leisure. Between the endless needs of a destitute world, our relative material wealth compared with the world’s poor, and an impoverished anthropology that says true Christians must perennially function beyond their human limitations in order to be radically committed to God, the practice of rest is rife with shame. Leisure is tantamount to backsliding.
