The only explanation that makes sense of beauty is that we are created in the image of God who relishes it; a non-utilitarian God.
If I Could Design My Dream Church
Favorite Food of 2015
I started a tradition back in 2010 of keeping an annual running list of the most delicious bites of food I had throughout the year. It's a nerdy foodie habit, I know, but one that helps me remember (rather than consume and quickly forget) the delicious gift of food and the art with which it can be created. As the late Robert Farrar Capon said (in The Supper of the Lamb), "We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.”
99 Great Things About Kansas City
Loving the Secular for its Secularity
9 Tips for Eating Christianly
The subject of a "theology of food" is one I recently explored in a cover story for Biola Magazine: "Soul & Stomach." Though it's hard to cover such a massive topic in a four page article, I'm proud of how the piece turned out. For a more expansive treatment of the subject, check out my book when it comes out in 2013.
Best Food of 2011
My year-end listmaking continues today with my recap of the year in food, an area of culture I am particularly fond of. God gave us taste buds and he made food tasty, and enjoying food is just such a blessed thing; something we shouldn’t take for granted. To celebrate the preciousness and artistry of food and the many ways it can be prepared, here is my list of the 15 tastiest things I ate in 2011, followed by a list of the 10 food trends I’m most excited about this year.
Food, Thanksgiving, Shabbat
A major biblical theme as it relates to food is thanksgiving for God’s provision. One of the most interesting food-related stories in Scripture is the miraculous appearance of manna each morning for the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness (Exodus 16:4). That they gathered only enough for one day on each morning demonstrated the extent to which they had to trust and depend on God’s faithfulness. For them, the manna was a very tangible, honey-tasting reminder of why eating food is an act of thanksgiving.