Blog Posts

In November I traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to film a portion of a video curriculum on Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis.  It’s the first such curriculum authorized by the Lewis estate, and is hosted by Eric Metaxas.  I felt honored to be asked to contribute to the project. I bought my paperback copy of Mere Christianity in 1968, almost fifty years ago.  (Brand new it cost me $1.25!)  It’s a measure of C. S. Lewis’s greatness that he ...

I have fond memories of a church in Chicago that taught me grace. LaSalle Street Church sat halfway between the city’s richest neighborhood, the Gold Coast fronting Lake Michigan, and its poorest, a massive high-rise housing project notorious for drugs, gangs, and murder. Hoping to stabilize the community, LaSalle joined with other churches in the 1970s to develop affordable housing in between those two neighborhoods. Lo and behold, some four decades later that investment has paid off in a big ...

I am writing in the middle of a book tour that takes me to seven cities in the U.S.  The tour actually started the day after we returned from a similar tour in South Korea and Taiwan. I must say, there’s a major difference in the attention span of audiences in Asia and America.  In Asia, listeners sit for 90 minutes straight (I talk for 45 minutes and the interpretation takes equal time) without crossing and uncrossing their legs or ...

In a few days my new book will be published: Vanishing Grace: What Ever Happened to the Good News?  I wrote it after reading surveys that document a dramatic shift in our culture, what I call the “grace gap.” Ordinary Americans, especially those who have no religious commitment, view Christians much less favorably now than they did even twenty years ago. Outsiders to the faith see Christians as judgmental, self-righteous, right-wing, and anti — anti-gay, anti-science, anti-sex — the usual stereotypes. ...