12 from '20

'Tis the season for "Best of" articles, and since I don't do links very often, I wanted to share some of my favorite posts from other sites. In approximately chronological order:

♞5 Ways to Love God with All Your Mind
"As our minds master truth – and are in turn mastered by it – the rest of our being inevitably follows. Hence we find ourselves experiencing greater love for God as we hear, sing and speak of the truths we know. Truths grasped in your mind can be tasted and savoured."

♞Seven Apologetics Books Every Teen Should Read
These books offer a good starting place for anyone of any age, but these would be a great foundation for someone who will be heading off to college.

♞It’s Time for a New Culture War Strategy
"[W]e must recommit ourselves to strengthening alternative institutions, investing in counter-cultural church communities, and catechizing our own children. Let me underscore the last item. ...

Here’s a culture war strategy conservative Christians should get behind: have more children and disciple them like crazy."

♞Why Read Early Christian Authors?
"The truth of the matter is that far too many modern-day Evangelicals are either ignorant of or quite uncomfortable with the Church Fathers. ... Well did Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–92)—a man who certainly could not be accused of elevating tradition to the level of, let alone over, Scripture—once note: 'It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others.'"

♞The Fear of the Lord ... for today?
"[T]he fear of the Lord remains unclear for most of us, and it is critical to embrace it if we are to grow in wisdom (Pro 1:7). Let’s assume that we benefit from understanding it, and we could use more of it."

♞Not White Fragility, Mutual Responsibility
"Watching a country tear itself apart is quite a spectacle. This is the cycle I have come to expect when we have a national racial incident. We have the racial incident, the protest and the backlash. Is it a cycle that we can break? Not if we keep doing what we have done before. So here is my attempt to move away from that cycle and to encourage us to think about a mutual accountability approach."

♞Let's Think About This For a Moment
"If you read every day about every bad and evil thing that has happened over the last 24 hours in every part of the world, you shouldn't be surprised if you are constantly dwelling on those things and struggling with depression and anxiety. If you listen to songs with sexually explicit lyrics and watch movies, television shows, and videos with sexually explicit images, you shouldn't be surprised if you are constantly dwelling on those things and struggling with lust. ... If you choose to drink from a sewer rather than from a clear spring, don't be surprised if you get sick. "

♞How to Prepare for the Next Cultural Revolution
"[W]e need to be ready for the next false philosophy—in a year, in five years, or in a decade—that will spawn the next cultural revolution. I can’t predict what it will be, but I know it will happen. I also know what we can do to be ready, prevent Christian defectors, and answer the challenge when it arrives. Here are two ways to prepare for the next revolution..."

♞We disagree over how to help people, not whether to help them
"[Pro-lifers] do want to care for people, including after they are born, and many of us are actively involved in doing so. We just don’t think it should necessarily be done by big government programs. ... Today, I want to relate a bit of my experience through my church in Louisiana to illustrate this point."

♞Teaching Politics at Belmont Has Me Worried About the State of Debate
"[O]ur classrooms have not escaped the tribal nature of our politics. Conversations are often strident, and it is a challenge to rein in disputes before they turn into full-fledged shouting matches. Students find it harder to come to grips with what Jonathan Haidt labels the “moral matrices” that underpin our political commitments and are hesitant to recognize the sacred values that “bind and blind” political choices, both ours and those of our opponents. The same sources that spur these novel conversations can create inflexible ideological camps."

♞A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory
This is part of a series of long-form articles by Tim Keller. They'll take a while to read, but they're worth the time investment.

"Which justice? There have never been stronger calls for justice than those we are hearing today. But seldom do those issuing the calls acknowledge that currently there are competing visions of justice, often at sharp variance, and that none of them have achieved anything like a cultural consensus, not even in a single country like the US."

♞Refugee? Mixed-Race? Please stop co-opting Christ
"Any time we make Jesus’s ministry about anything other than fulfilling His mission of being the perfect lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29) we are in danger of at least distorting the Gospel if not even teaching a false one (Gal. 1:8-9)."