Mere musings on culture, life, and theology by Samuel James
Samuel James on August 24, 2017 Rod Dreher reprints a correspondence between one of his readers and their child's school principal, regarding a teacher's lesson on transgenderism and sexual orientation. As the emails indicate, the parents had requested advance notice if their child's classrooms were going to teach on the topic, so as to officially request an exemption. When that didn't…
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Samuel James on July 10, 2017 Why were the Harry Potter stories so wildly successful? What was it about them, as opposed to hundreds of other "young adult" novels, that embossed onto the consciousness of a generation? Why are we celebrating the 20th anniversary of their US publication with the same kind of enthusiasm as if the books were published last…
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Samuel James on June 9, 2017 Question: Would you, Christian, ever be so disappointed in the political views of your pastor or fellow church members, that you found yourself unable to even bear going to church anymore? To be totally honest, before today, I would have dismissed this theoretical as too ridiculous for serious contemplation. It seems to me self-evident that…
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Samuel James on March 16, 2017 Today I'm re-upping this post from May 2016. Timothy George’s profile of Capitol Hill Baptist Church and its senior pastor, Mark Dever, is a joy to read. It was a joy for me personally because my wife and I are members of a church in Louisville that owes much to Dever and Capitol Hill. My…
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Samuel James on February 28, 2017 As someone who is generally sympathetic to the ideological quadrant from whence arguments like this one come, I am slow, usually, to critique writers who call for more purity, more clarity, and more protection for men and women in the church. That said, I think telling brothers and sisters in the local church that they…
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