Articles, interviews and opinion pieces that reflect critically on the world.
Only six years ago, a Christian publisher wouldn’t include a chapter I wrote on the Enneagram for fear of its reception by evangelicals. Today, you’re apt to find Enneagram discussions in many evangelical churches. You’ll find podcasts up-and-down your podcast dial. The internet offers dozens of free tests. Perhaps that’s why I’ve transitioned from enthusiastic to cautious.
In my experience, the Enneagram is taken more seriously by its advocates than any other personality tool I’ve encountered. This is primarily because it aims at the heart of things—rather than identifying clusters of traits it asks why we feel the way we feel, think how we think, and do what we do.
Few things will give you a better glimpse at total depravity in action than browsing the comments section of an online publication. How do we disrupt the cycle of unproductive, unloving public dialogue and resist the impulse to hide behind relative anonymity?
I can’t help but think of Labor Day as the side-eye holiday—as in, it’s the holiday to which we give the side-eye. We distrust it, or don’t quite know what to do with it. This is not true everywhere, of course, but on the whole, Labor Day is the holiday we’re most ill-at-ease with here in the US.
The week of the El Paso shooting, my son asked why the flags were not being flown at the top of the pole. It was a hard parenting moment.
As faithful men and women find themselves increasingly overconnected and yet under-resourced, seminaries and other sending organizations are struggling to equip their candidates. It is no small challenge to foster an operations-savvy, theologically sound, and somehow still relatable pastor.
