In the film Princess Bride, the character of Vizzini frequently exclaims, "Inconceivable!"  Finally Inigo Montoya responds, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."Read more

Christmas is a necessity; if it didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.

Various actors in the public sphere see Christmas as a battleground in the culture war (Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas, scholarly; Gibson, The War on Christmas, popular). Contesting Christmas—what the actors say Christmas means-- is itself a business, and business is good. People of faith skirmish with secularists, put-Christ-back-into-Christmas devotees battle merchants for hearts and wallets, and a few remnant Puritans give nearly inaudible voice to their centuries old complaint that Christmas, a date on the liturgical calendar, is not biblical.

 Except for the debate about secularism in the public sphere, the above paragraph could describe American society in 1905 and earlier. Leigh Schmidt, Professor of Religion at Princeton, tells the story of the construction of Christmas in America in Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays. Schmidt’s work is a superb piece of social history that is also a delight to read. In mustering diaries, handbills, sermons, newspaper articles and various advertisements, Schmidt shows that “the holiday was transformed through the intricately braided processes of domestication, Christianization, and commercialization.” (108) Today’s opposing camps jousted in similar fashion nearly two hundred years ago.Read more

My good friend Steve Halliday, single for forty-plus years before he married, once called singleness “the gift nobody wants,” likening it to a pair of really bad pajamas from an aunt who doesn’t know your size. I understand just what he means. Glenn thought this excerpt from a book I never meant to write, Moments for Singles, might encourage some of you who are wondering how many more Christmases you’ll be getting this particular, not-so-welcome gift. I hope it helps.

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Most of my single friends would like to be married. A few say they could be content to remain single for life; even fewer claim to have the gift of singleness. On the contrary, under the right circumstances, almost every single adult I know would choose the gift of marriage. But by definition, a gift is something chosen for us, not something we choose.

If God has chosen for you – today – the gift of singleness, will you gratefully receive it? Will I? And beyond receiving it, will we actively seek His design, not just for our lives in general, but for our present, unmarried state?

When my sister and I were young, she had an unusual way of receiving gifts she didn’t particularly like. I admired it, actually. While I would dutifully smile at the odd-gift giver and (insincerely) say, “Thank you very much,” Lynn would eye the unwanted gift, look at the giver, and say, “What did you give me this for?” (It drove my mother crazy.)

Looking back, I think she was on to something. God is the least fooled of anyone when we pretend to be pleased with another day or week or year of being single – and we are not. He couldn’t possibly be honored when we offer thanks for a thing for which we are not only not thankful, but secretly resentful. But I believe He actually welcomes an honest question like, “Why did you give me this, God? What is your purpose in it?” Read more

Justin Holcomb, who teaches at UVa, preaches occasionally at Christ Church in Charlottesville, and writes for Common Grounds Online, also travels to Southern Sudan every year to train pastors.

He has written a new article at "The Other Journal" (that's the name of the journal) about how Sudanese chaplains are dealing with claims to human rights and embodying peace.  Check it out here.

A few odds and ends. 

One, a great article by my friend Lori Smith on C.S. Lewis and the baptized imagination over at BreakPoint online.  Check it outRead more

Even though I know a full year in advance that the Christmas holidays are coming, I am inevitably caught off-guard.

Getting behind with Christmas decorating, shopping and baking is one thing.  Poor planning for the birth of a child, however, is an entirely different matter.  Ordinarily, expectant parents are obsessed with preparations—Lamaze classes, nursery furnishings and trial runs to the hospital.

So why did that first Christmas—an event God scheduled before Creation—have all the marks of poor planning?  Did God get caught in the Christmas rush too?

Read more

Amy Hall, who writes as "Face" at the A-Team blog, interviewed me in four segments.  Here are links to the interview at the A-Team. 

#1  Why we wrote Common Grounds, what the book is about,  and foreshadowing the next books in the Common Grounds series.

http://ateam.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/13/1448769.html

#2 On Apologetics: Evidences,  the work of the Holy Spirit and ListeningRead more

In case any readers still need a gift for someone, and you’re stuck on what to give, here are my suggestions.

At the risk of embarrassing CGO Contributors, I want to highlight their books.

First, do you know someone who could benefit from wisdom about dating, sourced in Scripture, and written in form that is both very funny and practical?

Ben Young & Sam Adams
The Ten Commandments of DatingRead more

Catez has put together a series of posts from divers bloggers for Spotlight on Darfur 3.  It's painful to read, as always, but reading can motivate us to pray and act.  See here for the links.

Greg Thompson, a CGO Contributor of the once and fRead more