The Humanitas Forum

Why are there so many who can assent to the essentials of the Christian faith and yet live as if they had never heard the gospel?  Undoubtedly there are many reasons.  But this much can be said with …

Over the past half-century, American doctors have begun to use the tools of medicine not merely to make sick people better but to make well people better than well. Bioethicists call these tools “enhancement technologies,” and usually characterize them as …

I don’t want to suggest that those of us who are following Jesus don’t have any fun, that there’s no joy, no exuberance, no ecstasy. They’re just not what the consumer thinks they are. When we advertise the gospel in …

It is impossible to understand your heart or your culture if you do not discern the counterfeit gods that influence them. In Romans 1:21-25 St Paul shows that idolatry is not only one sin among many, but what is fundamentally …

Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering”.

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I …

We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become …

Even though Soul Searching was published in 2005, there is little reason to think that things have improved in the spiritual lives of American teens.  In fact, in a follow-up study, Souls in Transition:  The Religious and Spiritual Lives of …

All things old are new again. Or, so it would seem!

As I recently reread Peter Gay’s chapter on “The Era of Pagan Christianity,” I was reminded of a more recent book that reflects a similar sort of syncretism, …

How are the Middle Ages like the decades before and after the turn of the 21st century? Both are characterized by religious syncretism—the blending of different philosophical and religious beliefs and practices.

Historian Peter Gay describes the four centuries …

Sunday morning idols don’t always arrive tucked away in the hidden recesses of the human hearts.  Sometimes they arrive in software packages ordered by the very people who plan Sunday morning worship.

This specialized worship software promises to “keep track …