tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52851078363779655292024-03-05T18:58:03.179-08:00Douglas Bond"Everything Douglas Bond writes is a fascinating read." Joel Belz, WORLD MagazineDouglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.comBlogger606125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-68755464221019082452022-09-23T13:59:00.000-07:002022-09-23T13:59:41.789-07:00Doing Well at the Things that CountHow are you doing? We’re often asking one another. And we dutifully respond, “Fine. I’m doing just fine.” When, in fact, we may be on the brink of despair. Do you ever feel that you’re believing and hoping in the darkness? Is your soul weary and troubled? You’re not alone. The life of Helen Howarth Lemmel (1863-1961) is a marvelous illustration of clinging and “doing well” though doing so in the Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-15491788434213213522022-01-25T18:21:00.000-08:002022-01-25T18:21:57.784-08:00Driving, Writing, and Living On the Wrong Side of the Road "One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness." CS LewisI'm a little giddy as I joyfully relaunch the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class for Spring, 2022. Boris Johnson just announced the lifting of travel restrictions to the UK (for we unvaxed, all we need is a negative Covid test, but no ten-day quarantine, and mask mandate ending). I've been asked, what is the Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-90508972176930455972022-01-06T11:25:00.003-08:002022-01-06T11:36:58.615-08:00What To Do When Heroes Fail Us My life has been shaped in significant ways by the lives of men and women whom I look up to. Like it or not, this is true of everyone of us. "Hero-worship exists," wrote Thomas Carlyle, "has existed, and will forever exist, universally, among mankind." We were made for worship, ultimately the worship of God, but we all "worship" certain people. Tragically, in the modern world, hero worship Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-58797711511370402692020-12-04T17:17:00.008-08:002020-12-04T17:17:54.163-08:00Hey, I Read Your Book! "Hey, I read your book!"I've lost count how many times I've heard that from people I meet. It's a little embarrassing for them (and seems a bit self-serving for me) if I reply by asking, which one? That was a completely accurate thing to say twenty-one years ago (though there were obviously many fewer people who had reason to say it back then). But with gift giving upon us, and with our Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-70771508780495319402020-10-10T17:15:00.001-07:002020-10-10T17:15:13.259-07:00LUTHER : In Real Time--Episode 1 Today is the opening day of the audio theater Luther: In Real Time that I have been commissioned to write by Ligonier Ministries. I have written an episode every week for the six months leading up to Luther's cosmic stand before the emperor at the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521. Please listen and share with everybody! It has been a delightful process working with such great folks, Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-25422286774953554162020-08-22T12:16:00.002-07:002020-08-22T12:16:43.559-07:00THE HOBGOBLINS--Now Available for Preorder!I am delighted to announce the release of my latest book, THE HOBGOBLINS, a novel on John Bunyan. I managed to write the first draft in a whirlwind of only seven weeks--right in the early weeks of the pandemic hysteria. I thought I loved John Bunyan before writing The Hobgoblins, but now I love him to an incalculable degree. His entire life is an enactment of God's way in the gospel: Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-86588041526999312882020-06-06T12:14:00.000-07:002020-06-06T12:30:36.909-07:00When and How Do Christians Protest Against Injustice?
Why does God choose the foolish to confound the wise?
We've seen protests in the streets of cities all across American in the last week, protests that have erupted into mayhem and violence, more evil, more injustice, and more death.
I am unapologetically a Protestant Christian, finding my spiritual and theological roots in the Protestant Reformation. Did you notice the word protest in the Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-3948076770205299762020-04-06T11:57:00.000-07:002020-04-06T11:57:03.793-07:00What the Pandemic Teaches Us About Hymnals and Congregational Singing
Singing together in our living room yesterday (Palm Sunday) during the ongoing pandemic, it occurred to me just how difficult it is to replicate the entertainment ethos in our living rooms--no soloists "leading" us, no band, no amplifiers, no voice enhancement technology, no mood lighting, in some cases, no fog machine. How did the underground house churches do it? How do they do church in Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-11090462829198889542020-04-02T19:43:00.000-07:002020-04-03T17:17:13.050-07:00Heal Us and We Shall be Healed: How our pandemic is similar to the plague in Wycliffe's day
"Lord
Jesus, turn us to you, and then we shall be turned. Heal
us, and we shall be truly whole. For without your grace and help no man may be
truly turned or healed." John Wycliffe
The following is an excerpt from chapter 15 or THE REVOLT, my novel set in Wycliffe's 14th century England. Listen daily to my read aloud of The Revolt at bondbooks.net.
...Over
the next weeks, I came to Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-14357581583280738142020-03-16T19:59:00.000-07:002020-03-16T19:59:40.542-07:00Plague, Leeches, and Raw Fear
By the Death Bed, 1896 by Edvard Munch
I have this annoying mannerism; when I'm anxious about something, I catch myself licking my lips. Licked lips get chapped. Mine are pretty chapped right now, more so than usual. I don't know about you, but I've undergone a series of changes in my thinking and feeling about the global coronavirus pandemic.
First I was pretty cavalier and Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-1758442636790021512019-12-25T13:31:00.000-08:002019-12-25T13:31:16.629-08:00How NOT to Sing at Christmas (or any other time of the year)
SING A NEW SONG (excerpt from God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To)
"If it was good enough for Isaac Watts, it’s good enough for
me.” Few of us would come right out and say this, but I confess to thinking
along those lines. Over two decades of writing and speaking about singing and
liturgy, I’ve been accused of being a liturgical traditionalist. Skim through
the Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-85133171727224182152019-12-17T13:39:00.000-08:002020-03-20T17:04:32.469-07:00Geneva Gigues not Dirges: Ways We Fake Solemnity and Joy In Worship
"...the heavenly anthem drowns/All music but its own..."
Early in my adult life, I was a commercial photographer,
working for magazines, corporations, medical industry, shipping, and I had a
university client. While setting up lights and equipment for a photo shoot in a
university classroom, I heard singing down the hall, singing of the praise
chorus, worship song variety, energetic andDouglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-51128998898083479722019-12-11T12:05:00.000-08:002019-12-11T12:07:35.999-08:00Hip or Holy? Can We Be Cool and Christian?
Marty Sampson, former songwriter for Hillsong
COOL OR
CHRISTIAN (excerpt from God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To)
Co-opting
the entertainment ethos as many churches have done, has brought some large
hipster churches to the attention of the mainstream media. And they’re not all
critical.
“The music! The lights!
The crowds!” gushed a reporter on a CNN segment after a visit to an Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-72765202180111943722019-12-07T18:07:00.001-08:002019-12-07T18:07:43.896-08:00Horror and Heroism at Pearl Harbor
John Hemminger with his P-47, Edna Mae
“Tora! Tora! Tora!” Elated in the cockpit of his
Nakajima B5N carrier-based torpedo bomber, Capt. Mitsuo Fuchida shouted into
his headset, “Charge! Torpedo attack!” the code indicating that, as planned, in
defiance of international law, the Japanese attack caught the American Navy by
complete surprise.
It was December 7, 1941, 7:55 am Hawaii time. Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-56305448686441671702019-11-22T12:34:00.000-08:002019-11-22T12:34:19.093-08:00
Lewis's Oxford and grave (he loved cats--especially lions!)
On this day, November 22, 1963, Aldous Huxley died in LA of an LSD overdose, JFK died in Dallas from an assassin's bullet to the head. And on the same day at The Kilns near Oxford, C. S. Lewis's devoted brother Warnie brought a cup of tea to his ailing younger brother. Moments later, Warnie heard a clattering fall. Lewis had tried toDouglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-36020836274132465142019-11-20T16:11:00.000-08:002019-11-21T11:53:12.368-08:00Solitary Conceit: CS Lewis Sticking His Nose Up at Hymns
A
generation ago, most mature
Christians knew the power of singing psalms and psalm-like hymns in worship, in
the home, and around the family table. Experienced Christians knew more of life
and of the reality of death; they had knelt at the deathbed of loved ones and
friends, and made the connection. A disciplined life of joyful singing was one
of the very important ways we Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-26774286378136822312019-11-04T17:44:00.000-08:002019-11-06T14:21:06.267-08:00Music as the Opiate of the Masses: Communicating the Eternal With the Transitory
"...addictive but transitory... numbing, anesthetic, escapist."
[excerpt from God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To)
...many worship songs... were first composed for a solo voice, usually
the lead vocalist in a band. In the church service, the worship leader becomes
the lead vocalist, usually attempting to make his voice sound like the pop
entertainer’s voice who first popularized the new Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-21458672315871299772019-10-30T14:28:00.000-07:002019-10-30T14:28:15.178-07:00REFORMATION ROMANCE: Part 2, Marriage Luther and Katie's Way[Read Part 1]
Bond travelers at Augustinian cloister, Wittenberg
SACRAMENTAL
CORRUPTION OF MARRIAGE
Pause with me in our narrative of Luther and Katie’s life
together. How had marriage gotten so corrupted by the Medieval Church? In one
of his influential pamphlets, “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” Luther
made a frontal assault on the “foul contagion” of the entire sacramental systemDouglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-10698994815134664272019-10-24T12:43:00.000-07:002019-10-24T17:43:26.185-07:00REFORMATION ROMANCE: Love and Marriage Luther and Katie’s Way, Part 1
Apostate monk marries apostate nun
“He’s
merely a monk who wants a wife,” so the pope dismissed Martin Luther when first
he heard of the Saxon monk’s decrying of the papacy. But then in 1521, during
his compelled sequester in the Wartburg Castle, Luther began hearing of many
former priests taking wives. “Good heavens!” he retorted. “They won’t give me a
wife.” Even his colleagues Carlstadt Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-37580911503496609092019-10-15T16:52:00.000-07:002019-10-15T16:52:57.579-07:00Grunting Hogs and Braying Asses--How Not to Sing in Church
WORSHIP AND IDOLATRY
Calvin and Luther on music in worship
T
he late Kurt Cobain likely did not have a clue he was
screaming the anthem of an entire generation in his 1991 hit “Entertain us.”
With the lights out it’s
less dangerous;
Here we are now
entertain us.
I feel stupid and
contagious;
Here we are now
entertain us.
Cobain and many pop musical Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-90584338298418517442019-09-21T18:06:00.000-07:002019-09-24T14:02:44.013-07:00What to Do When Truth and Unity Collide
I hate disunity. There is nothing more soul killing than
being at odds with the very people with whom I ought to have the most profound
unity. I hate it. That’s probably why Ephesians 2 is one of my favorite
chapters of the Bible.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--><!--[if !supportAnnotations]-->[AM1]<!--[endif]--> Christ
himself has made peace through the blood of the crossDouglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-13087183510648764532019-09-11T13:10:00.000-07:002019-09-16T16:37:14.095-07:00HOW TO LOVE YOUR ENEMIES (And Why It Seems Impossible)
Encircled by gnashing critics,
Reformer John Calvin referred to his detractors in 16th century Geneva as
"tearing wolves." These were not stuffed kids' toys; they were
leaders in the church, leaders in the political life of the community, snarling
enemies with power and the will to use it against him.
About men like this, Jesus said,
"Love your enemies" (Matt 5:44). Our reaction to the Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-2216462783566575342019-09-02T16:52:00.001-07:002019-09-02T16:52:44.604-07:00The Literacy Crisis—The Way Forward? Go Back
60% of American students read below grade level
True confession. I am a slow reader. My wife blows through a
book at three times my reading rate. While on a flight
once, we found ourselves with only one book (pre E-book world, but more of that
in a moment). She was drumming her fingers on the armrest when I was still
solidly on the first page. She maintains that she remembers almost nothing ofDouglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-73000058709599299302019-04-17T16:46:00.000-07:002019-04-17T16:49:35.763-07:00How Does a Cathedral Mean?
Notre Dame Paris, 2013
I've been thinking a good deal about Notre Dame burning in Paris. I know I am not alone. My first of many visits to the most visited monument in Paris (yes, more than the Eiffel Tower) was in 1982; our Armistice Centenary Tour visited Notre Dame ten months ago. I will never forget or ever be able to fully express in words what walking into an 850-year-old Gothic Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5285107836377965529.post-61392334889973270002019-03-07T14:42:00.000-08:002019-03-07T14:47:18.283-08:00Riches to Rubbish--Van Gogh's Unstable View of the Bible
Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait
"Theo, woe is me..." On my flight home last night I became engrossed in Dear Theo, the unvarnished letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his attentive younger brother Theo. Penned by a desperate man, writing to a brother whom he deeply loved and implicitly trusted, Van Gogh exposed every tattered thread of his tormented soul. It is many things, but one is a Douglas Bondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179692766783349444noreply@blogger.com0