While delivering an address at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, Richard Lucas, the longtime pastor of St. Helen’s Bishopgate Church in London, England, once said that the phrase “and he also made the stars” at the end of Genesis 1:16 was perhaps the greatest throwaway line in all of Scripture. Having God’s galaxies-creating act […]
Friday, 30 June, 2017 by James H. Gilmore
Arriving airline passengers are frequently asked, "How was your flight?" The question is often met with the matter-of-fact response, "Uneventful." A typical jetliner such as a Boeing 737 can weigh over 100,000 pounds with passengers and baggage aboard. The aircraft can fly 500 miles per hour and needs less than 10,000 feet of runway to […]
Saturday, 28 February, 2015 by James H. Gilmore
Nearly three decades after its publication, you still hear people refer to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Especially among theological conservatives, the book is cited as the definitive critique of today's media- and entertainment-saturated culture. Mind you, not much of the book's content actually gets referenced, just the book's title. The all-too-clever catchphrase has […]
Wednesday, 01 May, 2013 by James H. Gilmore
Businesses must go beyond mere entertainment to truly engage participants in memorable and meaningful ways. To achieve this, they need to richly draw from the following four experiential realms: Educational (to learn via active absorption) Escapist (to transport from one sense of reality to another via active immersion) Esthetic (to hang out and "just be" […]
Wednesday, 01 May, 2013 by James H. Gilmore
Recently spotted on a teenager: a Nike T-shirt sporting the slogan, "There is no finish line." The phrase comes from the headline off a poster seen in the background of one of Nike's earliest "Just Do It" commercials, circa 1991. The poster itself was very popular at the time, functioning as a marketing manifesto celebrating […]
Tuesday, 03 January, 2012 by James H. Gilmore