Lenin kicked off his revolution with the “Decree on the Separation of Church from State and School from Church” (1918). He ended state support of churches, stripped them of their land, and revoked the civil rights of priests. Stalin intensified this persecution, banning all religious publications and missionary activity, harassing and arresting clergy, and even…

Writing is seduction. Stephen King said that.* I like this metaphor because, whoa, have I beheld terrible attempts at seduction! I’ve worked at night clubs and fancy restaurants. I’ve heard pickup lines bad enough to flatten your beer. I’ve smelled colognes and perfumes so thick the fire alarms went off. The gimmicks people use to…

5 out of 5 stars. In John Piper’s “Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of God’s Grace,” Piper lays down a clear case for this crazy crazy crazy theology, complete with Piper’s self-assured tone and total blindness to his own domineering presuppositions. In typical John Piper fashion, which I’ve come to simply consider part of…

I worked at this fun, though admittedly garish, restaurant called Planet Hollywood while in college. After a particularly grueling week of classes, pummeled by tests and papers, I dragged my weary body into work. One of our bartenders, Gretchen, sat at the break-room table playing with a freshly lit cigarette. “You look like shit,” she…

LESSER DRUGS uncle Casey made me laugh so hard, when I was a kid, I’d cry. one time we were laughing I couldn’t even breathe. another time, in the truck, we made Grandpa mad: “Dammit, I’m tryna’ drive” (but pretty soon he was laughing too) Casey. he showed me treasures of humor and joys hidden…

I really really wanted to like the movie 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. But WOW was it bad. Shallow and simplistic characters, plastic dialogue, and, sheesh, Dixon… this guy transforms from a racist Gomer Pile into Mahatma Gandhi all because his boss wrote him a letter saying “you’re a good guy” and “you should love…

Ask almost any Christian: “How did young David defeat Goliath, the giant warrior?” Probably about 99 times out of 100 you’ll get an answer something like: “Because David had great faith in God.”   Those who answer like this assume, like the Philistines, that David did not have the power or skill to win a…

APPROACHING HORSES and there past the barn I see the horses, grazing out in a field, together, but also alone. I see the horses standing in the sunlit fog. I pause to acknowledge their dignity. they stand waiting to serve me, neither domesticated nor wild. they bow their heads to graze, content with whatever grass…

I like the idea of our choices being like sips. We nibble ourselves to death in slow-motion suicides. We build mountains on our own backs made up of tiny, seemingly insignificant grains of sand. “It’s no big deal,” we say, and add another grain. We struggle to conceptualize the consequences of such small choices. I…

The problem with all these THIS-IS-THE-FIRST-DAY-OF-THE-REST-OF-YOUR-LIFE folks is that they emphasize the wrong thing. Their intention (noble and pure) is to get you to realize how special THIS day is, to get you all in a frenzy about THIS day. They want to tap into that part of you that hungers to do great things.…