This week Iโm traveling to New York for a week-long meeting and wonโt be able to write a normal article, so I thought Iโd share my favorite articles that I have written from the last 12 years. Many of you came to know my work after Disruptive Witness, so these will be new to you. They span politics, theology, music criticism, and personal reflection. Here they are in roughly chronological order:
โIt was if not the worst Christmas present I had ever received, easily the tackiest and most senselessโ
My Prodigal Grandmother
When my grandmother passed away in September of 2012, I was not able to attend the funeral, but I wanted to. As her health was in decline, I started thinking about the ideas in this article with the intention to read them at her funeral. Since I wasnโt able to, I wrote this article instead, which is about my grandmother, but also about love and prodigalityโa concept Iโd explore in depth in You Are Not Your Own.
โIโd like to suggest that the rise in racial conflict during Obamaโs presidency is actually a good and necessary thing, and that much of the anger over this issue stems from deeply flawed understandings of race and history.โ
The Naked Racism of an Obama America
Written after Obamaโs first term as president and after the Trayvon Martin shooting, this piece explores the racial animus directed at Obama. At this time I was in grad school and one of my hobbies was obsessively following publications like WorldNetDaily and Breitbart as well as the personal Facebook accounts of a variety of conservative evangelicals. I started noticing not only opposition to Obamaโs presidency (and there were plenty of good reasons for that), but racially tinged opposition. Unfortunately, due to the ravages of time and the internet, the images in this article are all gone. They featured several examples of this racial animus.
โIt may be one of the hardest lessons that I have had to learn, that nearly all my purity efforts were built around denying and even condemning the beauty that God has created.โ
What I Learned about Lust and Beauty from a Flickr Voyeur
This was one of my more riskier pieces, admitting that I struggle with lust. I donโt think itโs a besetting sin, but as with most men and many people, lust is a regular temptation in an overly-sexualized world. But this piece is not about my desires. Itโs about the nature of lust in the human heart. I hope one day to turn this into a short book like On Getting Out of Bed. Weโll see if it happens.
โThe weight of being in the world is unbearable because the suffering we cause is our responsibility and yet out of our control.โ
Franz Kafka and McGee and Me
This was the first article I wrote about my OCD, even though I didnโt call it OCD in the article. What I loved about this article was the juxtaposition of cultural analysis, theology, niche Christian media, and Franz Kafka. It is both intensely personal and also a close reading of a childhood VHS tape. I also love the image that my friend Sethe Hahne made for me.
โOne day, at least one day, each of us will find that life takes a lot of courage, really โ courage to get up and live, to drag one foot after the other towards tomorrow.โ
When Existence Becomes Seemingly Impossible
Before I wrote โOn Living,โ which became the basis for On Getting Out of Bed, I wrote about Robin Williamsโ suicide and how it affected me. If youโve read OGOOB, youโll recognize a lot of similar themes. I guess Iโd been thinking about these ideas for at least nine years before publishing the book. Ultimately, โOn Livingโ is a better essay, but many of you have read it in one form or another.
โPersecution has an allure for many evangelicals.โ
The Evangelical Persecution Complex
When I was asked to write some pieces for The Atlantic from an evangelical perspective, I was shopping in Samโs Club and my mind was blown. The first piece I wrote for them was on the propensity of some evangelicals to play the victim in order to feel like they were serving God through persecution. Part of this article comes out of watching figures like a certain former Fox News commentator find anything that might be spun as anti-Christian sentiment by the Obama White House and blowing it out of proportion.
โUltimately, the idea that evangelical Christian morality is incompatible with modern life isnโt sustainable.โ
Is Evangelical Morality Still Acceptable in America?
The problem with my first article in The Atlantic was that it didnโt tell the whole picture. Yes, some evangelicals portray themselves as martyrs when they arenโt really being oppressed at all. But thatโs not the whole story. Before the debates about โNegative Worldโ started, I tried to explore whether it was even possible to live in a liberal pluralistic society and hold evangelical beliefs. Now I cringe a little when people share or cite my first article without also sharing this one to give it necessary balance. The reality is that the secular world has only grown more hostile to the Christian faith since this was published.
โSubverting listenersโ expectations, this 2012, platinum-selling, critically acclaimed rap album is about the power of the gospel to save.โ
I'LL WRITE TIL I'M RIGHT WITH GOD
Aside from writing for The Atlantic, this is probably the publication Iโm most proud of. Not because itโs my best essay, but because I wrote about Kendrick Lamar for First Things. I wrote about Kendrick Lamar for First Things. I still canโt believe I got away with that.
โAs a matter of policy, President Trumpโs administration treats truth as merely a function of power.โ
Christian Witness Demands That We Defend Truthโand Reject Donald Trump
Youโll notice that I donโt have notable essays on this list from 2015 to 2020. For five years I was focused on writing books rather than essays. To some extent I regret not also writing articles, particularly for The Atlantic. But it is what it is. In 2020, I was asked to write a position essay for Public Discourse on the upcoming presidential election. I didnโt want to rehash the usual arguments, so I tried to make a case against Trump (not for Biden) based on Trumpโs use of deception and itโs corrosive effects on society.
โThe foundations of our society are not quite destroyed, but they are cracking, and those cracks raise the psalmistโs question, โWhat can the righteous do?โ (Ps. 11:3).โ
Christian Colleges Are in Crisis
This essay explores a topic I hope to elaborate on in the future, maybe in a book: how to shore up the ruins of Western society. One of the cornerstones, I believe, is a renewed higher education system, especially one grounded in the Christian tradition, history, virtues, and in general, the liberal arts. I donโt think colleges can save the West, but I do think that good colleges can do essential work to shore up the ruins and prevent an accelerated collapse.
โWhat nobody told me was that your conscience, or what feels like your conscience, can be entirely mistaken through no fault of your own.โ
Living with Religious Scrupulosity or Moral OCD
This is by far my most personal essay and the riskiest thing Iโve written. I debated writing it for a long time. I knew that revealing this might give me a label (โThat one guy with OCD!โ) or pigeonhole me, but at the encouragement of Susannah Black Roberts at Plough, I decided to write about my experience. Youโll note that I still do so in a fairly detached way. It doesnโt divulge much detail about my specific experiences. I think itโs healthy and appropriate to hold some things back.