Items included on this page come from a variety of sources. The perspectives conveyed may or may not express a Lutheran ethos. They can serve our instruction as discussion-starters, examples (positive and negative), and illustrations of intersections between God’s two kingdoms, intersections sometimes characterized by tension, sometimes by congruence. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
The Quietly Dangerous Suburban Church — How three architects in the 1950s tried to meld religion, modernism and suburbia: The marks of the church are word and sacraments (AC VII); thus, here is a study for the-spiritual-and-the-material, a key Reformation insight about the Gospel. To what extend are other spatial elements important and edifying? The 1950s and ’60s […]
Captured on Canvas, a reflection on two paintings for Advent at the National Gallery, is an essay that students may consider about the link between visual allegory and our liturgical allegory of God’s real intervention in history: ” If it is Christmas we are celebrating, then we have left the realm of allegory far behind.”
Conflicted Catharsis: On ISIS and Revenge Films: in movies and in life, should Christians celebrate when villains are killed? The police, the military, the enforcement agencies who preserve peace in the world—when they are not abused—are agents of temporal justice in a world desperately seeking shalom. The complication is that sin infects not just the […]
A steady stream of news stories has emerged over the past few years regarding the free speech of Christians on campuses. A simple Google search of student free speech news on their Web search page and their News search page will produce many case studies that students can sort and sift for issues in religious […]
Nothing prepared the art world for “The 613,” the series of 613 paintings by Archie Rand completed in 2008, one for each Jewish commandment. No gallery or museum has shown them all. To do that, Mr. Rand had to put the paintings between the covers of a book. “The 613,” a wonderfully garish book with […]
The Weird and Wonderful Church Drawings of John Hendrix: This illustrator is reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, the late-medieval painter best known for his busy allegorical visions of biblical scenes. But viewers this side of the Reformation will note that, unlike Bosch, Hendrix draws explicitly from the Word and words. Most of his sketches include passages of […]
Welcome to the first global Christian hackathon, where programmers speak of transformational love and pastors wield code. In 13 cities, 800 Christian coders, developers, programmers, designers, pastors, and artists gathered together for a 48-hour simultaneous hackathon. They scripted, designed, collaborated, and competed to develop new apps and websites for global and local adherents to the […]
The porn industry is betting new advances in the technology can convince more people to pay for the content, since sales of traditional adult video have actually been slowing. Revenue growth among adult and pornographic websites increased at an annualized rate of just 0.3% to $3.3 billion over the five-year period ending in 2015, as […]
The Christ and Pop Culture Website — Here is a fellowship of (mostly) young Christians keeping an eye on the intersections and misses of Christ and popular culture: “CaPC is an online magazine that addresses important issues and topics in popular culture” whose mission is “to edify the Church, glorify God, and witness to the […]
Pop Culture Gets Religion (or not) — Christianity Today offers a 2014 summary of God in pop culture. It includes themes about memory, justice, the source of evil, the recent Bible movies, and other ways that popular culture presents religious ideas our students take in.
