Author Archives: Matt

About Matt

Software engineer by trade; lay theologian by nature; Lutheran by grace.

A Most Peculiar Animal

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Matt

Though philosophy is usually considered a more high-brow, ivory-tower kind of discipline, it is something everybody practices, whether they do so intentionally or not. Accordingly, philosophies that start out among the elites in the academy always have a way of … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Humanism, Natural Law | 2 Comments

Faithless Feedback

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Matt

How do non-Christians feel about “being on the receiving end of the efforts of Christian evangelicals to convert them?” Or, putting it in Christian language, “how do unbelievers feel about having heard a Gospel that they didn’t believe?” I think … Continue reading →

Posted in Spiritual But Not Religious, The Modern Church, Theological Liberalism | Leave a comment

Why Millennials Leave, and What to Do About It

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Matt

There are two temptations a Christian encounters whenever he reads about why young people are leaving the church. The first is to seek to transform the church into whatever young people want it to be in order to retain them. … Continue reading →

Posted in Apologetics, Christian Youth, The Modern Church | Leave a comment

The Rise of the Superstitious Left

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Matt

I happened across a rather strange headline today: The Rise of the Religious Left: Religious Progressives Will Soon Outnumber Conservatives. I found this puzzling given the current trends in American religion. I generally think of the religious left as the … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Spiritual But Not Religious, Theological Liberalism | Leave a comment

Nobody Wants to Commit

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Matt

“Men just don’t want to commit.” It’s a charge that seems to come up fairly often when we ponder the sexual immorality and illegitimate children around us, and it is probably true. As I’ve written before, sexually barbaric men tend … Continue reading →

Posted in Chastity, Ethics | 1 Comment

The Father is Not A Metaphor

Posted on June 22, 2013 by Matt

What’s the deal with all that “father” language in the Bible anyway? The gender-explicit language of Scripture has long been a stumbling block to theological liberals. Under the influence of feminism, many have sought to relegate all the masculinity of … Continue reading →

Posted in Feminism, Theological Liberalism | 7 Comments

Please Stop Working Together

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Matt

One of the most common complaints I hear about contemporary politics is that the two primary political parties are always at each others’ throats.   “If only we could all work together, then we could finally get something done and solve … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 2 Comments

The Secular Virtue of Faith

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Matt

Christians talk about faith a great deal. It is, after all, through faith that we are saved. When we speak about this kind of faith, we’re referring to a kind of trust in God and His promises to us. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Ethics | Leave a comment

Doing Lines

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Matt

Where is the line that separates abortion from infanticide?  A rather remarkable video has been making the rounds in which a Planned Parenthood representative argues for the legality of post-birth abortion at a Florida legislative hearing.  The question is whether … Continue reading →

Posted in Abortion, Ethics, Politics | 1 Comment

Closer to God

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Matt

How do we get closer to God? The question occurred to me while I was reviewing a passage from William P. Young’s The Shack for a class I plan on teaching this spring on the heresy of Modalism (among others).*  … Continue reading →

Posted in The Modern Church | 1 Comment