Here is a case study for discernment, based on a true story (though I’ve taken liberties with many of the details). Your small group…
Discernment Exercise: Why I Kissed Christian Concerts Good-bye
Editor’s Introduction In the following piece a music lover, after attending Christian concerts regularly for a decade and a half, explains why he no…
Discernment Exercise: Questioning American Foreign Policy
Since 9/11 our country and our churches have once again been interested in just war theory. Since the attack on the World Trade Center…
Discernment Exercise: Your God Does Intolerable Things
Often the questions we face in a pluralistic culture require Christians to develop an apologetic for their faith. A reasonable, winsome defense of what…
Discernment Exercise: Beatitudes on the Dark Side
One of the great classics of 20th century Christian writing is The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. It’s one of those rare books…
Discernment Exercise: Halloween, A Distinctly Christian Holiday
It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has…
Discernment Exercise: How Committed is Too Committed?
In a report published in Harper’s (January 2016, p. 53-62), “The Ultimate Terrorist Factory: Are French prisons incubating extremism?” journalist Scott Sayare tells how…
Flourishing with technology: An exercise in discernment
Technology: What’s Gained and What’s Lost? In an article titled “How You’ll Get Organized,” James Fallows asked five technology experts “to speculate about the…
Discernment Exercise: A Toolkit for Conversations
The School of Life (www.theschooloflife.com), headquartered in London and founded by philosopher and author Alain de Botton, offers in their shop an attractive little…
Discernment Exercise: Responding to a Changing World
Hans Rookmaaker, art historian and colleague of Francis Schaeffer published Modern Art and the Death of a Culture in 1970. It was written, in…