Late last year, I saw Matthew Continetti link a study by Gallup showing a decline in American religiosity. I didn't comment on it at the time, because I had other posts planned.
The article just linked refers to a "17-point drop in the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life — from 66% in 2015 to 49% today". And you'd expect many of those 49% to be saying that religion is important to them without living like it, so the situation is even worse in that sense. I've cited many other such statistics over the years that reflect poorly on some large percentage of Americans, often a majority or large majority. See here, for example. The country is as secular and trivial as it is primarily because that's what most Americans want. Don't try to shift the blame.
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Eyes Smeared With Blood And Tears He Could Not Wipe Away
"For since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted." (Hebrews 2:18)
"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
"For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:21)
Christ's suffering accomplished many things, among them what's mentioned in the passages of scripture quoted above. One of the ways Christians should view suffering is in terms of how Christ suffered before us and how he suffered in ways like our suffering. His suffering is unlike ours in some ways, but also like ours in others. I wrote about these themes as they relate to the Garden of Gethsemane in a post earlier this year.
Richard Bauckham recently published a book about an experience he went through a few years ago involving a loss of his eyesight, the blurring of his vision. He wrote, "Later (perhaps on the bus home, I forget) I began to compose a poem based on the thought that the eyesight of Jesus, as he hung dying on the cross, would surely have become blurred, smeared with blood and tears that he could not wipe away." (The Blurred Cross [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2024], 118) It's an aspect of Jesus' suffering that doesn't get much attention. Bauckham quotes the poem he wrote:
I think perhaps that when you hung in pain,
bearing the weight of all this sad world's wrong,
your vision blurred. Could you distinctly see
your mother and your friends?...
Through that blur of blood, that cloud of tears and sweat,
you look with love on all whose sight is dimmed.
"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
"For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:21)
Christ's suffering accomplished many things, among them what's mentioned in the passages of scripture quoted above. One of the ways Christians should view suffering is in terms of how Christ suffered before us and how he suffered in ways like our suffering. His suffering is unlike ours in some ways, but also like ours in others. I wrote about these themes as they relate to the Garden of Gethsemane in a post earlier this year.
Richard Bauckham recently published a book about an experience he went through a few years ago involving a loss of his eyesight, the blurring of his vision. He wrote, "Later (perhaps on the bus home, I forget) I began to compose a poem based on the thought that the eyesight of Jesus, as he hung dying on the cross, would surely have become blurred, smeared with blood and tears that he could not wipe away." (The Blurred Cross [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2024], 118) It's an aspect of Jesus' suffering that doesn't get much attention. Bauckham quotes the poem he wrote:
I think perhaps that when you hung in pain,
bearing the weight of all this sad world's wrong,
your vision blurred. Could you distinctly see
your mother and your friends?...
Through that blur of blood, that cloud of tears and sweat,
you look with love on all whose sight is dimmed.
Sunday, June 21, 2026
A Good Way To Think About Papias
He's one of the earliest extrabiblical sources who comments on Christianity, he addresses some significant issues, and many people think (probably correctly) that he had met the apostle John. But he's also highly controversial, in a lot of contexts, and there are widespread disagreements about how to interpret him. You can access an archive of our posts about Papias here.
What I want to focus on in this post is a good way to think about Papias in an important context in which he's often brought up, the authorship of the gospels (and related issues, like the origins of the gospels more broadly). He's often treated as if he's an isolated figure in the context of gospel authorship. He'll sometimes be referred to, wrongly, as the only individual who named any gospel authors before Irenaeus did so. (See here for a correction of that mistake.) People will try to undermine his credibility by various means, suggesting that we therefore don't have any reliable sources on gospel authorship in the earliest generations of Christianity, that he doesn't cause much of a problem for the hypothesis of the original anonymity of the gospels, etc. But Papias is connected to other sources in this context:
- He names a predecessor he got at least some of his information on gospel authorship from, a man he refers to as "the elder" (in Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).
- The reason why people like Eusebius could quote Papias is that he wrote some material that was still extant in later generations. And the best explanation for why he wrote about gospel authorship is that he thought his audience was interested in the subject.
So, although Papias is just one individual, he relied on at least one earlier source on issues of gospel authorship (the elder), and he wrote about gospel authorship for an audience he probably thought was interested in the subject. Interest in and information about the authorship of the gospels (and other matters pertaining to the origins of the gospels) predate Papias and are present in some of Papias' contemporaries, not just Papias. It's helpful to think of him in connection with those other sources, the elder and the audience for whom Papias wrote.
What I want to focus on in this post is a good way to think about Papias in an important context in which he's often brought up, the authorship of the gospels (and related issues, like the origins of the gospels more broadly). He's often treated as if he's an isolated figure in the context of gospel authorship. He'll sometimes be referred to, wrongly, as the only individual who named any gospel authors before Irenaeus did so. (See here for a correction of that mistake.) People will try to undermine his credibility by various means, suggesting that we therefore don't have any reliable sources on gospel authorship in the earliest generations of Christianity, that he doesn't cause much of a problem for the hypothesis of the original anonymity of the gospels, etc. But Papias is connected to other sources in this context:
- He names a predecessor he got at least some of his information on gospel authorship from, a man he refers to as "the elder" (in Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).
- The reason why people like Eusebius could quote Papias is that he wrote some material that was still extant in later generations. And the best explanation for why he wrote about gospel authorship is that he thought his audience was interested in the subject.
So, although Papias is just one individual, he relied on at least one earlier source on issues of gospel authorship (the elder), and he wrote about gospel authorship for an audience he probably thought was interested in the subject. Interest in and information about the authorship of the gospels (and other matters pertaining to the origins of the gospels) predate Papias and are present in some of Papias' contemporaries, not just Papias. It's helpful to think of him in connection with those other sources, the elder and the audience for whom Papias wrote.
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