From Nathan’s ovine rebuke of David through Bunyan’s Pilgrim and Lewis’ Narnian fantasies, stories have been used throughout history to precipitate encounters with truth. In the twentieth century, through the work of philosophers like Sartre and Derrida, story has been, in a sense elevated from a tool available for communication and instruction to sum of … Read more
Globalization of migration creates opportunities for missions on our doorstep. In Hong Kong, the number of ethnic minorities increased by 37% over the past ten years. Further, more Chinese from mainland China immigrated to Hong Kong. While the world focuses on the development of AI, fewer people are concerned about the development of relations between … Read more
Polarization and division are widely lamented features of both Western societies and the churches in the 21st century. Yet even across the board of our fragmented Western (sub)cultures, there remain common (and hence somewhat unifying) phenomena – for instance, the need for references to certain sources of authority, by which a given claim or agenda … Read more
Carl F. H. Henry, one of the 20th century’s greatest evangelical theologians, dedicated much energy to the study of Western trends. In Christian Countermoves in a Decadent Culture (1986), he observed regarding the landscape as he saw it, “It is neither the best of times nor the worst of times. But it is a time … Read more
Generally, the study of rhetoric examines language used in persuasion. Corbett and Conners define rhetoric as “The art or the discipline that deals with the use of discourse, either spoken or written, to inform or persuade or motivate an audience.” In his classic work On Rhetoric, Aristotle explained, “rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is … Read more
Correctly understanding cultural differences is essential in global evangelism. One can gain a significantly better cultural understanding with the Revised Minkov-Hofstede Cultural Dimensions (RMHCD). This paper contributes to this understanding by providing gospel insights from the two cultural dimensions of RMHCD: individualism versus collectivism and monumentalism versus flexibility. Individualism versus collectivism is well-known, while monumentalism … Read more
One surefire way to furrow the brows and purse the lips of Christian artists is to use the term ‘Christian art’. Such terminology immediately evokes images of quasi-Christian kitsch, or the simplistic licks of much contemporary Christian rock. For many artists, the notion of Christian art is closely associated with a hyper-modern, lowest-common-denominator view of … Read more
Several recent works on secularity and Christian faith have noted similarities between the challenges to Christianity in the second century and current tensions between Christian faithfulness and rising secularity (Michael Kruger, Christianity at the Crossroads, viii; Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, 3–4; Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, 452–454). Given that … Read more
Francis Schaeffer once remarked, “I think anybody who searches for only one or two people to explain my positions and my attitudes is pursuing a hopeless task.” Schaeffer does not give a comprehensive list of who he is indebted to intellectually. Nevertheless, much has been written concerning who played a significant influence in Schaeffer’s life … Read more
As Christianity’s cultural influence wanes, different versions of spirituality have increased their prominence in Western society. Eastern forms of spirituality have been growing in the West since the latter half of the twentieth century, Transcendental Meditation in particular. First established by Maharishi Mahesh, Transcendental Meditation spread quickly from India to Europe and the United States … Read more