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September 2014

September 02, 2014

Why they cancelled “Longmire”

One of my favorite TV shows has been Longmire, an extremely well-done mystery series centering...

August 2014

August 27, 2014

Reading on Kindle vs. reading on paper

The London Guardian reports on a study of reading on a Kindle as compared to...

July 2014

July 10, 2014

What a child with a classical education can do

Last summer I blogged about what I consider to be possibly the best book on...

July 03, 2014

Evangelicals discover George Herbert

Finally, as I have been agitating for throughout my career, modern-day Christians are discovering George...

June 2014

June 10, 2014

An example of imaginative apologetics

Mathew Block asks me to give an example of imaginative apologetics. So I talk about...

June 05, 2014

How God uses the imagination

More from my interview with Mathew Block, who asks how God uses our human imaginations...

May 2014

May 29, 2014

New literary biography of George Herbert

There is a new literary biography of the 17th century Christian poet George Herbert. It's...

May 27, 2014

Law and Gospel in a short fairy tale

Will McDavid at Mockingbird quotes “The Ungrateful Son,” an extremely short fairy tale from the...

May 05, 2014

Is Jesus just a legend?

Jesus must be either who He said He was--the Son of God--or He must have...

May 02, 2014

The world’s eucatastrophe

Thanks to Rev. Sam Schuldheisz who posted passages from J. R. R. Tolkien on "eucatastrophe,"...

April 2014

April 25, 2014

19th century super-novels

My post about Les Miserables provoked some good discussion--including teaching me another telling internet abbreviation...

April 23, 2014

“Les Misérables” as a good book

I have finally finished Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. I saw the movie and had earlier...

April 20, 2014

George Herbert on Easter

Easter by George Herbert RISE heart ; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise Without...

April 18, 2014

George Herbert on Christ on the Cross

For a Good Friday meditation, read The Sacrifice by George Herbert after the jump. It...

April 17, 2014

On the night when he was betrayed

We commemorate quite a lot of things on Maundy Thursday. Jesus washed His disciple's feet,...

April 17, 2014

George Herbert on Holy Communion

The Invitation Come ye hither all, whose taste Is your waste; Save your cost, and...

April 09, 2014

George Herbert’s struggles with his vocation

We've blogged about Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, who wrote in the London Guardian that the poetry of...

April 09, 2014

Bible reading in the digital age

In answer to my question about how reading conditioned by the internet might affect the...

April 08, 2014

George Herbert on Sin, Love, & the Sacrament

Miranda Threlfall-Holmes discusses one of my favorite poems, The Agony by George Herbert. It is...

April 08, 2014

Does the internet degrade our ability to read?

There is some evidence that the way we read on the internet--skimming, surfing, hopping from...

March 2014

March 28, 2014

JRR Tolkien’s Beowulf is coming!

J. R. R. Tolkien made a translation of Beowulf, which is going to be published...

March 27, 2014

The Annunciation and “Lord of the Rings”

More belated Annunciation thoughts. From Isaac Augustine Morales, The Annunciation and the One Ring |...

March 18, 2014

J.R.R. Tolkien on Sex

In 1941, J. R. R. Tolkien did what most fathers tremble to do: talk to...

March 14, 2014

George Herbert on prayer

We blogged about Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, who wrote about how she was converted from atheism in...

March 07, 2014

John Donne’s impact today

Mathew Block discusses that piece we blogged about in which a former atheist credits her...

March 03, 2014

How George Herbert’s poetry converted an atheist

I throw out opinions on all kinds of topics, but my real area of expertise...

February 2014

February 20, 2014

Discovering the novel “The Hammer of God”

Tullian Tchividjian tells about discovering--along with some other evangelicals--the great Lutheran novel The Hammer of...

January 2014

January 10, 2014

Stay-at-Home entertainment vs. live theater

What with Netflix, on-demand TV, Hulu on the iPad, and videos on the smart phone,...

January 02, 2014

Reading a novel is good for your brain

The kind of research that we literature professors appreciate: Being pulled into the world of...

December 2013

December 31, 2013

The best books of 2013?

What were the best books of 2013? Or, to propose a second category, what were...