Welcome

What Are You Looking For?

That’s the question I’m asking these days. That’s the question Jesus asked a group a group of people in his neighborhood one day. Early one morning, I felt he was asking the same question of me: Yes, what am I really looking for? It’s changing my life.

I’ve been through a lot over the last months. We are all challenged by so many things. Our world is tossed upside down. Answers to our questions seem to fall short so often.

In what lies ahead for this blogsite, through the weekly blog posts, the recommended reading, the teaching, I want to probe the many layers of the question Jesus is asking. We’ll also try to propose some answers along the way.

I hope you will join me. Subscribe to get regular mailings and updates. I look forward to hearing from you. Let’s work on this big question together.

The Blog

Featured
Rolling Out Of Bed
Rolling Out Of Bed

Do you ever find yourself grumbling as you roll out of bed? As I splash my face with cold water I’m already complaining why it takes so long to get warm water to this faucet? I start worrying as well why technology shut down our email last evening. Things are just coming apart at the seams, I mumble. I start stressing this early over those two classes I’m teaching—good grief, why can’t I get my act together, like my good friend Tim Smith, who teaches four or five classes at the same time and produces those marvelous podcasts three times a week. What’s wrong with me?

New Mercies In The Morning
New Mercies In The Morning

Allow me a little personal note to explain why I am so filled with joy this morning. Wait a minute, filled with joy? Isn’t this the season of Lent, a time to ponder the death of our Lord, a time to recognize sorrow and suffering and sadness that courses through our lives and our world? We’ve got a valley of darkness to wade through before we can once again see sunrise on Easter morning. Resurrection can seem so far away at times.

Holy Reading When It Matters
Holy Reading When It Matters

In recent writing and teaching I’ve been talking about what I think is at least part of the sorry story of our baffling desire to cancel the cultural drivers of the past. We’ve stopped reading those big books or great poems; we’ve stopped viewing magnificent art. Worst of all we’ve stopped reading the Christian Bible as the animating center of what is true and good and beautiful. Those were the sources of deeper thoughtfulness in the past. Are we really ready to discard it all?

That Small Moth, Oh Those Birds
That Small Moth, Oh Those Birds

Life just seems to bump along most of the time, sort of staying the same a lot. We get up in the morning, maybe too late, maybe too early, splash cold water on our faces, and step into another day. So often we don’t expect much will be new, as we rush forward, checking our to-do lists, checking our calendars. It can get pretty routine.

My Books

Sing Us a Song of Joy - Saying what we believe in an age of disbelief by Phil Eaton

Sing Us a Song of Joy: Saying what We Believe in an Age of Unbelief .

What I write here may be the theme of my life. When so many in our pervasively secular society seek to erase anything Christian from our lives—well, that’s when I come out scrapping. Surely there must be something more than what is purely material. For me that something more is found in the mystery of our encounter with the living God. That’s my starting point. That’s where we discover, I contend, fullness, joy, contentment.

I hope you will find something helpful and meaningful as you too seek to sing your song of joy.

Engaging the Culture Changing the World by Phil Eaton

Engaging the Culture, Changing the World: The Christian University In A Post-Christian World.

This earlier book defines the special purpose of the Christian university for our day. We have a chance, I argue, to make the world a better place for all of God’s children. We do our work, though, in a decidedly secular, postmodern, post-Christian culture that presses against our Christian purpose. That’s the culture we must engage, but as we do, we prepare the way for a bright future ahead for the Christian university.

Teaching

I am excited to say I am working diligently toward presenting some new teaching, online this time. I’ll be reflecting on the question Jesus is asking of me, and all of us, these days: What am I looking for? Just be patient while I work. I’ll be back to let you know where to find these new courses and how to enroll.