Hi friends, I recently started blogging again. These days I’m writing less about Lutheranism (although that always seems to come up) and more about the experience of being religious in the highly non-religious tech industry. Maybe that’s your cup of tea and maybe not but feel free to say hi over at the new blog.
My first post just went live: https://levinunnink.substack.com/p/man-with-a-god-god-with-a-man
Thoughts on the passing of a literary hero
We can think only of creatures, of things He’s made. Creatures are all we know, and can be all we know until we know Him.
- Gene Wolfe, The Wizard
Today Notre Dame burns and Gene Wolfe is dead. These two images seems sadly connected in my heart.
I first came across Gene Wolfe about fifteen years ago when I found The Knight in my local library. I was trying to write a fantasy novel myself and I was looking for “inspiration”. I’d heard that Wolfe was an author I should read and so I got whatever the library had…
I’ve been engaging in this debate for a while. I’ve been persecuted for my views, o! how I’ve been persecuted: Angry face emojis, sad face emojis, mocking GIFs, I’ve been through it all! (But fear not, I’m authoring a resolution for our next synodical convention that hopefully will give me some justice.)
I’m not actually all that pro-evolution. I’m just passionately against the idea that the age of the earth should be taught as a dogma or that Young Earth Creationism is a standard of orthodoxy. You better believe, it’s hard to suffer so for my proud ambivalence but I’m…
This was originally printed on https://apilgriminnarnia.com/. If you haven’t visited that blog, you really should.
As a lifelong reader of C.S. Lewis’s and his Space Trilogy, in my estimation, the first novel Out of the Silent Planet was enjoyable but the most “slight” of the trilogy: an initial foray into themes that Lewis would develop more fully in the subsequent novels. Recently on my podcast we decided to read through Out of the Silent Planet chapter by chapter. Once we began, I realized I had been wrong. …
I was walking through the city square in Wroclaw, Poland this morning and I noticed a young man curled up on the sidewalk sleeping against a building. The only reason I took any notice of him is because another young man, who appeared to be on his way to work, was kneeling beside the sleeper checking to see if he was ok. In a minute, a few elderly couples joined him and formed a concerned little conference.
I’ve never seen anything like that happen in America. I walked away feeling like I’d glimpsed something magical.
For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? — 1 Peter: 2
This is a tough time for orthodox Christians. Especially those of us, like myself, who live in a state where the government and big business seem to want to force us out of public life. It’s hard not to feel like a cornered animal. …
Tolkien’s Eucatastrophe and Good Friday
He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross… So, also, in John 14:8, where Philip spoke according to the theology of glory: “Show us the Father.” Christ forthwith set aside his flighty thought about seeing God elsewhere and led him to himself, saying, “Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father”. For this reason true theology and recognition of God are in the crucified Christ, as it is also stated in John 10 “No one comes to the Father, but by me.” …
It’s the 500th anniversary of The Reformation, which is something of a mixed event for me. I’m not one of those “Ah… the blessed Reformers” types who believe The Gospel was buried in a compost pile until Luther and Calvin came along and “rediscovered it”. (Cough, cough, White Horse Inn.) Yes, The Reformation was a good thing, I guess, if you ignore the present terrible state of Protestantism, and frankly that’s somewhat difficult.
Sure Rome has the problematic concept of infused grace but they also don’t have the ELCA or Paul Washer. Point Rome. Sure we have Sola Scriptura but…
A few thoughts on the Bozeman conference by someone who was there.
Warning: This is some serious Lutheran inside baseball. Non Missouri Synod members don’t expect to understand this.
The last thing I wrote was Highway to the Lutheran Danger Zone in March of 2016 and I meant it to be my “So long and thanks for all the fish!” article to the world of Lutheran social media. Online Lutheranism had become like organized crime in the 80s; the reckless fun was over and people were starting to rat on each other. So, like any good Lutheran, I claimed my…
“It’s a boy!”
Here’s the first time I can remember saying those words: It was sometime after midnight. I was nineteen years old, basically still a kid. I was exhausted, scared. My young wife appeared almost dead next to me, clutching my hand. The last twenty four hours had been the most painful of her life. There was blood everywhere. There staring back at me was a purple, pink naked thing covered in who-knows-what gunk.
Then I gulped, gasped, choked out, “It’s a boy!”. I barely registered that was crying harder than I had in years.
The room erupted with…
Levi Nunnink
I’m a Lutheran layman currently living in California. I occasionally write about theology here. Try to contain your excitement.
