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I’ve recently been invited to join First Things as a regular blogger with their “First Thoughts” column, so it’s feasible a few new visitors might be making their way here at some point soon. A word of introduction is therefore in order. My name is Mathew Block and I’m Communications Manager for Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC). I’m also editor of LCC’s national, bi-monthly magazine The Canadian Lutheran, for which I write a regular column entitled “Table Talk.”

I’ve written two “On the Square” articles for First Things, the most recent being a report on emerging dialogue between confessional Lutherans and Roman Catholics. Outside of First Things and The Canadian Lutheran, I’ve also written for Canadian publications like Converge magazine and The National Post’s “Holy Post” blog. My most recent article for the “Holy Post” (entitled “Disagree with Christians? That’s fine. But do not silence them”) focused on growing intolerance to religion in Canada, and caused a bit of a stir here north of the border.

As I write elsewhere on this blog, I believe that “God has called us to think critically about both Church and Culture.” That means learning to think Christianly about every aspect of human experience. My degrees are in literature and linguistics, so those (in addition to theology in general) tend to be subjects about which I particularly enjoy “thinking Christianly.” But they’re hardly all, as you can see below.

Here are a few links to some interesting articles I’ve written on this blog or elsewhere in the past year or two. They give a good introduction to the type of writing and thinking I enjoy:

1)      “John Donne’s ‘Mere Christianity.’” Captain Thin.

2)      “Martin Luther: Sinner/Saint.” The Canadian Lutheran.

3)      “The Man God hasn’t called you to be.” Converge Magazine. (p. 32-33).

4)      “A key named ‘Promise.’” The Canadian Lutheran.

5)      “Hercule Poirot and our itching ears.” A Christian Thing.

6)      Christianity and Literature Series. Captain Thin

Part 1 – “Contra Litterās: Augustine and the English Majors”
Part 2 – “What Good is Literature? Bunyan and Losing Ourselves to Find Ourselves”
Part 3 – “Judging the Literary Experience – Embracing Truth, Rejecting Error”
Part 4 – “Beauty in Literature and the Christian Reader”
Part 5 – “Literature and the Limits of Language”

That should be more than enough to serve as an introduction. My first post at “First Thoughts” will be going up later today.

Cheers,

Mathew

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