faith building | Two Handed Warriors

It’s a Wonderful Life and the Courage to Live (and Create Art) Idealistically

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Few of us will ever get an invitation to an early screening of our life’s work like George did. Yet we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. To be a two handed warrior is to live for that heavenly red carpet affair, not its pale imitation at the Kodak theatre.

Capra’s Tale of a Depressed Idealist: It’s a Wonderful Life, Part 2

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) provides a wonderful expression of the complicated interplay between modern Physicalism and Idealism as life-interpreting stories in the life of its main character, George Bailey.

It’s a Wonderful Worldview: Frank Capra’s Theistic Masterpiece, by Gary David Stratton

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais’s atheism joke and his holiday message in the Wall Street Journal, “Why I’m An Atheist,” provide a perfect backdrop for examining one of Hollywood's most famous attempts to defend Theism–It’s a Wonderful Life.

Rabbinic Higher Education: Culture-Making, The Life of the Mind, and the Word of God

Sunday, July 17, 2011

If the Torah cannot go out into your world of scholarship and return stronger, then we are all fools and charlatans. I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth. — Chaim Potok, In the Beginning Rabbinic Judaism forms a second important stream for understanding how higher education was originally designed to [...]

You Shall Not Pass! The Supernatural Power of Two Handed Warfare

Monday, June 20, 2011

Expertise in faith and culture rarely go hand-in-hand. Leaders adept at culture making—whether in Hollywood or the Ivy League—are rarely trained in the disciplines of faith building; whereas leaders with strengths in faith building—whether in a local congregation or an international relief agency—are rarely trained in the art of culture making.

Two Handed Warrior Books of the Decade, by Gary & Sue Stratton

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Sue and I put our heads together over dinner at Outback last night and came up with our own twenty (popular) books on the two themes of Two Handed Warriors—Culture Making and Faith Building.

The Golden Globes, Ricky Gervais’ Atheism and Sentimental Hogwash: It’s a Wonderful Life, Part 1

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais’s Atheism joke and recent essay in the Wall Street Journal “Why I’m An Atheist,” provide a great background for examining an all-time great Christmas movie and one of the best defenses of Theism in Hollywood history–It’s a Wonderful Life.

The Holy Spirit and the Liberal Arts (Series Introduction)

Friday, November 5, 2010

Higher education has played a key role in the history of training two handed warriors. Ever since the formation of the first “Christian” college—a catechetical school connected to the Roman rhetorical school at Alexandria in the second-century, learning communities have often excelled in forging faith-building with culture-making. Although God can and certainly has worked through [...]