Classical Christian Thinking
⳩ “Re-integrating Reason, Revelation, Mystery & Imagination to Exhort Biblical Truths in a Disenchanted World.”
About Jamie
Jamie is a follower of the King, Jesus Christ; a husband, a father, a seminary student, and the discipleship pastor at TBA Church in Lakeland, FL. He and his wife met in high school and celebrated their 20th year of marriage in 2020. They have two teenage children, a son and a daughter.
He is a fan of classical thinkers represented by the great theological “A” team: the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas.; also, some of the great imaginative literary giants of the 20th century including G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. He believes in the unbroken unity of the classic and Christian Great Tradition and a pre-enlightenment unified worldview that integrates faith, reason, experience, and imagination. His ultimate and chief end is to glorify God and to make the name of Jesus famous!
About My Writing
The Enlightenment (or better said, “Endarkening”)
Until modern times no thinker of the first rank ever doubted that our judgements of value were rational judgements or that what they discovered was objective. It was taken for granted that in temptation passion was opposed, not to some sentiment, but to reason.. - C. S. Lewis
Ideas have consequences. Just ask Pandora, Isildur, or better yet, Eve. For Pandora, the idea of knowing what was inside the mysterious box vexed her. For Isildur, the lure of ultimate power seduced him. For Eve, the idea of the wisdom of God tempted her to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen 3:1-6). Some consequences, are disastrous. Consider the great absence of transcendence in the Western culture.
The Enlightenment is Pandora’s box (Kant’s philosophical box). All manner of hopeless philosophies entered the world through it. But there is a a hope and it is found in the worldview that is distinctly Christian.
When Pandora opened her box all manner of atrocities entered reality. But the very last thing to exit was hope. When Ilsidur lost the ring, it would pass through Gollum to an unlikely hero offering hope from the least capable of beings. And in our world, when all creation was cursed as Adam and Eve fell into temptation a glimmer of hope arises in the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 when God announced that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the seed of the serpent.
At the center of all things, the grounding for all good things, is Jesus Christ, Light of the world, the Way for Life, and Truth Incarnate. The Incarnation is the very center of history, and through it, we can apprehend the proper telos for all thinking, acting, feeling, and living of life. He Alone is the fulfillment of our purpose and function. In Him, we live, move, and have our being…. He has made away for us towards the hope spoken to in the great tradition, through his life, death, and Resurrection….
This site is my attempt… to honor God, do justice, advocate for a Biblical worldview, and seek the wisdom of the Scriptures… to speak to the heart, mind, and imagination, testing what is good and discarding the rest… to polemically challenge the crises of our broken western culture and its acceptance of a modern/postmodern dualistic epistemology, and to seek the wisdom & wonder of the Classical & Christian literary traditions. It is a rescue mission, beckoning you to come out of Plato’s cave and into the light.
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