Josh Jones quoting Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism: In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true… The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption…
Some notes I took on a sermon from Tim Keller on Psalm 51: Sin is not just breaking God’s word, but trampling on his heart. The path to wholeness is life changing, character forming, and freedom engendering repentance: Stop • being in denial. (You are capable of doing any wrong…
Mike Cosper waxes reminiscent on 20 years of church planting with Sojourn: The fervor of youth and the fresh vigor of faith makes it feel like you’ve stumbled into some unknown land, a place that the generation ahead of you missed somehow. It isn’t arrogance that makes you…
Peter Wehner for The Atlantic: What many of us within the Christian faith need to do better than we have—what I can do better than I have—is assert less of myself and more of God. If more followers of Jesus did that, if I did that, it would…
George Packer: [A]n ambitious legislative agenda isn’t enough, because the problem extends far beyond Washington, deep into the republic. Americans have lost faith in institutions, in one another, in democracy itself. Everything conspires against our role as citizens—big money, indifferent officials, byzantine election rules, mutual hatred, mutual…
There is ultimately no such thing as unanswered prayer. If the answer at first is “no” or “not yet,” it is because he gives us what we want in ways better than we asked.— Tim and Kathy Keller, meditation on Psalm 102 from The Songs of Jesus…
Jerry Seinfeld: “New York is over because everybody will ‘remote everything.’” Guess what? Everyone hates to do this. Everyone. Hates. You know why? There’s no energy. Energy, attitude and personality cannot be “remoted” through even the best fiber optic lines. That’s the whole reason many of us moved…
Tim Keller: You've got to find a way to take the plotline of the culture and give it a happy ending in Jesus. So for example 1st Corinthians 1: It says, the Jews want power and the Greeks want wisdom, and the Cross is weakness to the Jews and foolishness…
Stuart Stevens 30-year veteran strategist for the Republican Party on the Ezra Klein podcast: I went back and I re-read George Bush's acceptance speech in 2000, and it reads like a document from a lost civilization. It's all about humility, service, compassion. That person couldn't win 15% with that message…
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises: I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bullfighters, separately for the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again,…
Elizabeth Bruenig on (currently my favorite podcast) The Argument: I don't think we're particularly well designed to cope with getting news of the entire world updated every ten minutes on a live stream. I think it's extremely stressful; it's too much true information. And I think it can lead to…
The latest two episodes of the NYT's "The Daily" podcast try to get to the bottom of "cancel culture." One conclusion from a guest on episode two: I don't think that Twitter rewards asterisks, and 'ums,' and skepticism, and ambivalence, and questions. I think Twitter rewards absolute claims. You…