Jason Thacker serves as the Creative Director and Associate Research Fellow at The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is also a founding member of AI and Faith, a consortium of faith communities and academic institutions whose mission is to bring the world’s major religions into discussion regarding the ethics […]
Dance, Art, and the Divine
Sweat drips down my back. I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. The exhaustion is hardly noticeable amidst the surging adrenaline. All I feel is the heat radiating from the stage lights, the exertion of my muscles, and the rhythm of the pounding music. In this moment I feel complete. My body […]
Bearer of His Image: Beauty in the Body
It’s consuming our culture: the war between toxic self-deprecation and self-glorification. Despite the trend of cultural movements that emphasize body positivity, there are moments when the person you see in the mirror is the last person you want to see. At the heart of this discussion is the fact that we are dissatisfied with our […]
The Life of Faith in Reason: A Hegelian Perspective
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”¹ If these words by Pope John Paul II are true, why is it that faith and reason are commonly construed in opposition? Reason is often presented as the world of objectivity and thoughtfulness, while faith is viewed […]
What is a body?
What is a body – really, though? A shelter for my soul, A humble slave or faithful friend, An importunate foe? What thing to wield, my pulsing flesh, My spirit’s solid vessel, My will to own and to command For good or wicked evil. The more real things of this bright life, Like Self and […]
Bridging the Gap: Racial Reconciliation in the Church
“The problem of the twentieth century [was] the problem of the color-line,”¹ a blurry yet impenetrable distinction that split white from black, free from enchained, the children of one mother from another. Long before that, another line – in the Bible, between Jew and Gentile, between the free and the enchained, the liberated and oppressed.² […]