A Conversation with Leah Savas, Life Beat Reporter for World Magazine
Recovering the Christian Mind | May 15, 2023
Here is part one of a two-part conversation I had last week with Leah Savas, the “life beat” reporter for World Magazine. She and Marvin Olasky have collaborated on an important new book which details the impact of abortion in America since 1652.
If all you know about abortion in America is the legal battles and public protests, you’re missing the real story.
The Conversation with Leah Savas continues in Part Two.
A “Funeral” in Mayfields, Ferry Road, Eastham (UK)Recovering the Christian Mind | May 8, 2023
Recent trends in end of life “celebrations” are a clear indication that the traditional funeral is itself, dead.
A comprehensive report from the Theos Think Tank in London details these trends away from religious rites and toward more informal gatherings tailored to the unique personality of the deceased.
What the report reveals is what it doesn’t say explicitly: we are masking the horrific nature of death (and its cause – SIN) with irreverence and humor rather than confronting the reality of what death is, how it has separated us, and where the hope lies.
The Center for the Study of God & Culture exists to encourage Christians to relate cultural and political issues to the theological framework of the Christian faith, to view all of life in relationship to the sovereign purposes of God as the antidote to the outrage and fear which characterizes so much of the Christian response to the evil of our age.
To that end, we produce resources and podcasts with the objective of recovering the Christian mind. That sentiment is not original with us.
The English Anglican theologian Harry Blamires (1916-2017) published Recovering the Christian Mind in 1988 as a response to the secularism of the late 20th century. It was a follow up to his 1963 The Christian Mind in which he wrote:
"There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, the Christian ethic; a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality… But as a thinking being the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion — its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which relates all earthly issues within the context of the eternal, the view which relates all human problems — social, political, cultural — to the doctrinal foundations of the Christian Faith."
Rainn Wilson, best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the television sitcom The Office, is out on the circuit promoting his new book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.
Viral reels of Wilson’s recent appearance on the Rich Roll Podcast are being shared by Christians (and non-Christians) on their social media platforms because so much of what Rainn and Rich are talking about speaks to what Pascal referenced when he said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”
St. Augustine also famously said, “You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.”
But the spirituality Rainn and Rich are pedaling as a response to our spiritual longings is not not the spirituality Pascal and Augustine proclaimed. Soul Boom offers a revival of ancient heresies which were confronted and refuted by both the Apostles in sacred Scripture and by the church in its infancy.
On today’s episode of Recovering the Christian Mind we’ll hear what Rainn is saying and respond with the Bible.
Who are the two disciples in Luke 24 walking home to Emmaus from Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection of Jesus, and what are the implications for using our homes as welcoming places for the gospel?
