The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard lived a brief life (of only 42 years) in Denmark in the 19th century. In his Philosophical Fragments, he tells a parable entitled “The King and the Maiden” in an attempt to explain some of God’s motivations behind the Incarnation. The parable goes like this (as retold by David Jeremiah): Imagine there was a King who…
Thomas Nagel is one of the premier philosophers living today. This is one reason why his recent criticisms of Darwinism have caused such a stir. In his latest book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly Wrong, Nagel argues that materialism is incapable of explaining the phenomena of human consciousness. One thing that makes…
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the last twenty years, you know who John Mayer is. He displays an enormous musical talent, and evidently possesses an ego to match. Think of him what you will, one would be hard pressed to find a better song writer alive today. Some of his lyrics reveal insights that go beyond pop pablum….
Two weeks ago I attended a “Celebrating Creation” conference hosted by the BioLogos Foundation. As many readers know, BioLogos is an organization of evangelicals who accept theistic evolution (or evolutionary creationism, EC, as many prefer to call it). Evangelicals hold to a wide range of views concerning creation and evolution, and I’ve had the privilege of engaging with a number…
By God’s providence, Penny and I were visiting family in Missouri this weekend when we received news that my Grandma Lottie had passed away. Grandma was unique in so many ways. One fact that made her special was that she was the widow of a World War I veteran. That’s not a misprint. Grandpa Street was a veteran of WWI,…
Jamie Cullum is one of my favorite musicians. He sings and plays jazz piano with a lighted-hearted, likable style. If you’ve never heard him, his Twentysomething album is a great place to start. In it, Cullum covers everyone from Cole Porter to Jimi Hendrix. But it’s an original track written by Cullum–“I’m a Twentysomething”–that perceptively expresses the quandary in which…
When thinking about the mystery of God–whether contemplating His nature, His character, or the facets of His will–one quickly finds himself muttering Rumsfeldian quotes. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, talking about military intelligence, (in) famously observed, “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know. We also know there are known unknowns;…
The Japanese have stopped having children. Or more precisely, they are not having enough children to maintain the nation’s population. According to a recent article in The Week magazine (“Japan’s Population Crisis”, 01-07-14, p. 11), Japan’s population is “dropping rapidly” and will soon be declining at a rate of one million per year. Current projections have the overall Japanese population…
William Ernest Henley wrote Invictus in 1875. Undoubtably his most famous poem, it is an anthem of defiance. It has returned to prominence with the recent death of Nelson Mandela. Mandela would recite it to fellow inmates during his years of imprisonment, and President Obama recited the poem at Mandela’s memorial service. But Invictus has had a checkered history. When Timothy…
Penny and I have been traveling in Israel this past week with a group led by Danny Akin and Allan Moseley. The trip has been everything we hoped for and then some. There are 36 in our group of which several are Southeastern students; all of whom are a delight to share this experience with. We have travelled the Lebanese…