Pierce Taylor Hibbs's Blog

Our heads may love the psalms from 20,000 feet—the passionate pleading, the glory in God’s grandeur, the praise of his perfect providence. It’s a captivating landscape of raw emotion and spiritual vitality. But our hearts sing plenty of antipsalms. There’s a great distance between what we profess to believe on the outside, our doctrine, and […]

The post The Antipsalms We Sing appeared first on Pierce Taylor Hibbs.

As a conflict avoider, I never dreamed of writing about cultural issues or movements in the public square. Being the English nerd that I am, I would’ve been much happier to curl up in a chair with some poetry, a heavy blanket, and a peaceful resolution to live a hermetic life. But God has a […]

The post Ideologies vs. People appeared first on Pierce Taylor Hibbs.

Say the word “home” out loud. What do you see? What do you remember? What scents and scenes meander up the back steps of your memory? It might be a place. Or places. But aren’t there also hopes, dreams, longings, aspirations? And doesn’t the word “home” magnetically pull towards itself not just your past, but […]

The post Words Are Doors appeared first on Pierce Taylor Hibbs.

When it comes to spiritual matters, what you see is seldom what you get. Appearances aren’t just deceiving; they can be damning. History is rife with examples of hypocrisy: those who claim to be full of light but who are, in fact, dark as dungeons. A recent example reminded me just how important it is […]

The post Bright on the Outside, Dark on the Inside: Why Salvation Is a Matter of the Heart appeared first on Pierce Taylor Hibbs.

Every person is a piece of clay. We always have been and always will be. Clay is malleable, impressionable, ever ready for pushing and pulling. Most of the time we’re unaware of this. We think ourselves stone—weighted and set, rolling towards every daily destination. But we know better when we pause and look around. The […]

The post Digital Liturgies and Divine Love appeared first on Pierce Taylor Hibbs.

Have you ever heard the adage, “Every day things change. But basically they stay the same”? The words first found my ears in the 1990s, in a song from the Dave Matthew’s Band. And I’d forgotten them until recently. Typically, these words suggest a sort of defeatism, a “stuckness” in our life experience. But they […]

The post Our Culture’s Unbelief (and Belief) in Sin appeared first on Pierce Taylor Hibbs.

Beliefs ripple. But we make a concerted effort to ignore that. Especially within the system of Christian faith, people can be tempted to pick and choose which doctrines they are “okay with” and which ones they leave behind. The problem lies in the ripples. Christians don’t always see how disbelief in one thing affects belief […]

The post If You Don’t Believe in Hell appeared first on PTH.

I’ve been listening to some historic lectures by one of my theological heroes, the Dutch theologian and apologist Cornelius Van Til. In one lecture, he has a wonderful explanation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). And I found his words particularly relevant for our broader secular culture, ever striving after self. The […]

The post The Prodigal Swine appeared first on PTH.

It’s easy to spot a black ink stain on a white shirt. Anyone who sees it immediately judges. “That shouldn’t be there. It so obviously shouldn’t be there. How could someone possibly deem that wearable?” This is often the response we have to evil in the world: we see black stains on a world of […]

The post A Reflection on Hannah’s The Nightingale appeared first on PTH.

There’s been a lot of talk about how AI will replace writers. The recent explosion of ChatGPT has just increased the volume of the voices. As a writer, and a former writing teacher who has studied language theory and written two books on the craft (forthcoming), I guess I’m in a good position to address […]

The post Why AI Can Never Completely Replace Human Writers appeared first on PTH.