Postcards from Palookaville

Such is the technological and moral temper of our times that a serious report with the bizarre title Our Sexual Future with Robots might scarcely raise an eyebrow in a world where the scientifically possible is fast becoming the only judge of the ethical and where celibate friendship is now the...

My inbox has been full of positive reactions to the PBS docudrama which aired last night. It is now available online here.

I recently had the pleasure of doing a podcast with Tony Payne, of Moore College, Sydney, in which we talked about the piety of the Reformation and Reformers. You can find it here . We also chatted briefly about the greatest literary description of the impact of Protestant piety upon the households...

This week's Spectator has a powerful, if very harrowing, article on prostitution and the harm it does . All pastors -- all Christians -- should read it. It reminded me of a podcast interview the MoS team did with Heather Evans, of Valley Against Sex Trafficking. That too is worth a listen for...

This week I am giving the Moore College Lectures in Sydney. The title of the series (with due homage to the great Peter Taylor Forsyth) is Reformation Preaching and the Modern Mind . My hope is to use the Reformers, especially Luther, as a source for building a theological understanding of what...

Over at his blog at Patheos, Professor Chris Gehrz has responded to my most recent post at First Things . Rod Dreher has provided a good reply but I offer here just a couple of brief comments. First, Professor Gehrz seems on the whole to think that I see the problem with the LGBTQ movement as one...

For me this summer is to be one of engaging Martin Luther. Next Friday I am to be the token Schwaermer at a conference on the Word of God for Lutheran Church Missouri Synod pastors and theologians. In August I am giving the Moore Theological College Annual Lectures on ‘Reformation Preaching...

I have received unexpected and unsolicited gifts of two drinking vessels recently. The first, from the person we at the Spin know simply as Evil Amy the Less, the author who last year had the slanderous temerity to base (and indeed name) the character of an alcoholic priest in her novel of medieval...

Reading Augustine's De Trinitate this semester with a group of students, I was struck by this brilliant analysis of the way that sin operates. It comes from Book XII: "For just as a snake does not walk with open strides bur wriggles along by the tiny little movements of its scales, so the...