Category: Culture
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Review of Underoath’s New Album: Erase Me
Read more: Review of Underoath’s New Album: Erase MeUnderoath has just put out their new album since reassembling the band after their break up and farewell tour in 2012–13. Needless to say, fans were stoked to dive into the new album Erase Me once it appeared. Sadly, it’s mostly a dud. The album is very formulaic. Each song is bite-sized; the longest track is…
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Christianity, Intersectionality, and the Law
Read more: Christianity, Intersectionality, and the LawPicture Cassandra: a black woman of low income working three jobs to make ends meet. Her supervisor has a negative disposition toward black women of a lower financial caste, believing them lazy and entitled—“welfare Queens,” if you will—with poor attitudes. In accordance with this disposition, he assigns her more work than other associates to supposedly…
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Learn to Love Failure
Read more: Learn to Love FailurePerhaps the most pivotal point in learning how to improve in areas I cared about was learning to love failure. Not loving failure for its own sake, but for the profound influence it had on me. I’ve played sports or competed in some fashion all my life. Competition is in my blood, and I don’t…
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Looking Back to 2005 and a Brief Moment of Sincerity in Pop Music (before the dark times)
Read more: Looking Back to 2005 and a Brief Moment of Sincerity in Pop Music (before the dark times)Irony in music is cyclical (even if we can swear that those cycles take us lower and lower as a society the way we swear the lights are dimming in a theater minutes before the house goes dark). I’m thinking about irony because the magic YouTube algorithm thought I might want to see David Bowie…
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Cultural Aspects of Shame in the Asian American Community
Read more: Cultural Aspects of Shame in the Asian American CommunityLast week, I had the opportunity to teach on the cultural aspects of shame in the Asian American community. While shame can be a heavy topic, I am passionate sharing my research on this topic, since it affects so many people. I am grateful for the students’ feedback as they expressed how this lesson helped…
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Preserving Ladino: The Conservation of a Sephardic Jewish Language
Read more: Preserving Ladino: The Conservation of a Sephardic Jewish LanguageYou’ve heard of Yiddish, but what about Ladino? Many people are familiar with Yiddish, a German-Hebrew language (a blend, if you will) developed and spoken by Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. Ladino or Judeo-Spanish, a Sephardic Jewish language, is a parallel to Yiddish, though much less known.1 The language goes by other names, such as Judesmo/Djudezmo…
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Should Christians join the Military? A Forgotten Perspective
Read more: Should Christians join the Military? A Forgotten PerspectiveI have hesitated to write this post for some time now. Military service holds a special place of honor in American society. Veterans are our heroes, and everyone who joins the military gives up their life. Some sacrifice their lives unto death, while the rest forsake their homes, their families, their friends, and a “normal”…
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Contemplating Joy
Read more: Contemplating JoyI’ve decided that joy is a strange thing. We can experience joy apart from happiness. Sometimes joy leaks into our lives in the midst of sufferings and sometimes in erupts in the most mundane moments of our day. For such a short word, the meaning of joy seems vast enough to contain the simultaneous contraries…
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3 Simple Ways to Respond to this past Easter Weekend
Read more: 3 Simple Ways to Respond to this past Easter WeekendFor most followers of Jesus, our observance of Easter this past weekend marked a significant point in our yearly calendar that has been specifically set aside to celebrate the pinnacle of our faith, Jesus’ resurrection and life giving ministry. It’s meant to be a significant pause built into our busy schedules cementing a spiritual rhythm…
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Do Complementarians Rejoice When A Woman Preaches?
Read more: Do Complementarians Rejoice When A Woman Preaches?I have a simple question for my Complimentarian friends. The debate about women in ministry is well-worn and most of us know the key texts to discuss, the key theological paradigms that are debated, etc. The two camps are not entirely monolithic however, and there is plenty of room for nuanced positions and even some differing…