Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

My dad thinks I'm being influenced by the liberal slant of the college courses I've been imbibing over the past couple years. Of course everything we encounter affects us in SOME way. Here is what I do to avoid being unduly influenced by any new idea, argument, or world-view… I remind myself that no matter how good this new thing sounds, there are equally intelligent people making equally compelling cases for a competing thing. In other words, I don't listen to a course on Voltaire or Nietzsche and say, "Goly, I've never heard that argument before, and it sounds perfect, therefore it must be True!". I think this is the reason kids in college end up going through all sorts of phases and are usually turned into raging liberals. The new ideas they hear are so powerful because they don't have a lot of exposure to the broader world of ideas, or the life experience of being disillusioned by those who follow those new ideas. But I really don't suffer un...

Or: Why you shouldn't listen to anything I have to say. I think it will be funny for future Josh to read this and comment on how accurate he thinks this list is. I shall attempt to think of the biggest character attributes that hold me back from my goals. Things that keep me from clearly and accurately assessing reality in all its facets and making sound judgments about life. I hope this list is more than just a clown car of humility, but also a tool for recognizing blind spots and avoiding disastrous blunders. It can also be used in retrospect to interpret my past mistakes or even successes. As often these sorts of weaknesses can be double-edged swords, bringing about positive things as well as fumbling about, accidentally dismembering us. But these, I think, are mostly the single edge sword verity: only detrimental to me and those I love. You may notice I'm not listing things like my biases. I tried to exclude weaknesses that I think all humans have, otherwise I...

Preamble: I’m very aware that the past dozen or so theological posts I’ve made have been treading the same ground over and over. And over. These themes and ideas are being bounced around my skull, and their implications carefully examined. I’m a naturally careful person. Which in a lot of ways makes me boring. But that’s ok, as my goal with this blog is not to entertain. My goal is real-time testimony. And right now I’m testifying to a slow, methodical process of examination. I really only expect this to be interesting to Future Josh. I expressed an idea about why so many myths are similar here: http://joshuaforeman.blogspot.com/2008/05/true-myth.html I’m exploring something else here. George MacDonald’s Mythmaking I started C.S. Lewis’ anthology of George MacDonald this morning. Half way through the preface I ran into this idea which encapsulates the spirit, or posture towards the Bible* that I have developed over the past year or so. Though Lew...