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The Cultural Mind: Collected Essays from Tabletalk Magazine
“Nothing ages more rapidly than the current lust for contemporary relevance, and nothing ages more gracefully than an attitude of caring more about whether an observation is true than whether it is contemporary, or edgy, or emergent.” ~From The Cultural Mind In this collection of essays, Douglas Wilson explores all sorts of areas where the Bible should be applied in our lives--but isn’t. From the home to the public square, from the marriage bed to the pulpit, Doug uses Scriptural wisdom to expose the rot of our modern culture, and to show us how to build a culture with Christ at its center. The wide-ranging topics the need to recover masculinity in the church, the slippery slope of sexual perversity, the importance of fighting for and defending civic liberty, the sin of pacifism, the enervating vice of seeker-friendly worship, the dangers of a civil magistrate devoted to keeping us "safe." Originally written for Tabletalk magazine in the late 1990s and early 2000s, these articles are eerily prophetic, making them more relevant now than ever.
366 pages, Paperback
Published April 26, 2022
About the author
Douglas Wilson
311 books4,655 followersI write in order to make the little voices in my head go away. Thus far it hasn't worked.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 3, 2026
Jovial. Short. Sweet.
This is classic Wilson: witty, encouraging and convicting.
These collection of essays showed me a couple of things:
1) Wilson hasn't changed one bit. He has been a rock of stability for the past 25 years. He wrote these for tabletalk magazine when he was involved in big EVA and was writing for ligioneer, DesiringGod.org, and Christianity Today, and yet the stuff everyone finds controversial about him now he was saying then. Ex: He had several articles on the church and state, feminism, liberalism, and male headship.
2) Wilson (for all his flaws) has a robust and simple solution for the countless problems our culture is facing. For every problem he addressed (Legalism, Antinomeasnism, LGBTQ, feminism, abortion, a lack of confessionalism, etc.) his solution time and time again was reformed, confessional, and gospel centered. Sometimes his solution was understanding the atonement, or praying with your family or just simply the gospel. As his conclusion in one of his essays states, "The answer, as with so much else, begins with getting our theology straight. Christ was crucified under Pilate, buried, raised by His Father, and ascended into heaven. And that makes all the difference." (72).
3) Wilson has a phenomenal theology and understanding of Lordship, Dominion, and culture. He understands that the church should lead the culture and that almost everything in a culture can be derived from its worship. And today, we have lost that understanding and most evangelicals are grasping for straws to stay relevant. Its ironic too that he states these things because Wilson on the surface seems like a fundamentalist KJV only Baptist pastor that became a preacher when he was 18 and got the church handed down from Papaw. However, after reading and listening to him more, you quickly realize that he understands that most Christians end up looking foolish, dumb, or just plain idiotic when they try and be "hip" or keep up with what is relevant. However, Christians should be leading culture and dictating what's cool and not the other way around.This can all be summarized by 2 short quotations from his essay entitled "Starved For Crumbs" where he says first that "The cultural poverty within the church is considerable. Our idea of the cultural mandate is to ape whatever our disintegrating modern culture comes up with, after a respectable time lag of five to ten years. The only redeeming thing about our worldliness is that we carry it off badly. Anything the world can do, we can do afterwards and, hamstrung by our remaining biblical memories, worse. The faith, to paraphrase Paul Simon, ain’t got no cultcha. When the world comes up with thrasher bands, we want a thrasher band with John 3:16 somewhere in the liner notes." (55). Stings, and yet its so true, and oddly funny. He then calls us to go back to our historical roots when he writes, "The cultural achievements of Christianity were at one time magnificent—and these accomplishments from centuries past still remain with us. From the cathedral at Chartres to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, from Beowulf to the poetry of Donne, from the Dutch realists to Handel’s Messiah, the Christian church amply demonstrated that when a lofty view of God occupies the church, a vision for glorifying Him fills and transforms a culture." (56). Amen, Wilson.
I would definitely recommend this collection of essays as an easy, wity, and enlightening read to keep you company while walking somewhere, or waiting for something. Most of the essays are a couple of pages so it makes for a simple, easy read.
This is classic Wilson: witty, encouraging and convicting.
These collection of essays showed me a couple of things:
1) Wilson hasn't changed one bit. He has been a rock of stability for the past 25 years. He wrote these for tabletalk magazine when he was involved in big EVA and was writing for ligioneer, DesiringGod.org, and Christianity Today, and yet the stuff everyone finds controversial about him now he was saying then. Ex: He had several articles on the church and state, feminism, liberalism, and male headship.
2) Wilson (for all his flaws) has a robust and simple solution for the countless problems our culture is facing. For every problem he addressed (Legalism, Antinomeasnism, LGBTQ, feminism, abortion, a lack of confessionalism, etc.) his solution time and time again was reformed, confessional, and gospel centered. Sometimes his solution was understanding the atonement, or praying with your family or just simply the gospel. As his conclusion in one of his essays states, "The answer, as with so much else, begins with getting our theology straight. Christ was crucified under Pilate, buried, raised by His Father, and ascended into heaven. And that makes all the difference." (72).
3) Wilson has a phenomenal theology and understanding of Lordship, Dominion, and culture. He understands that the church should lead the culture and that almost everything in a culture can be derived from its worship. And today, we have lost that understanding and most evangelicals are grasping for straws to stay relevant. Its ironic too that he states these things because Wilson on the surface seems like a fundamentalist KJV only Baptist pastor that became a preacher when he was 18 and got the church handed down from Papaw. However, after reading and listening to him more, you quickly realize that he understands that most Christians end up looking foolish, dumb, or just plain idiotic when they try and be "hip" or keep up with what is relevant. However, Christians should be leading culture and dictating what's cool and not the other way around.This can all be summarized by 2 short quotations from his essay entitled "Starved For Crumbs" where he says first that "The cultural poverty within the church is considerable. Our idea of the cultural mandate is to ape whatever our disintegrating modern culture comes up with, after a respectable time lag of five to ten years. The only redeeming thing about our worldliness is that we carry it off badly. Anything the world can do, we can do afterwards and, hamstrung by our remaining biblical memories, worse. The faith, to paraphrase Paul Simon, ain’t got no cultcha. When the world comes up with thrasher bands, we want a thrasher band with John 3:16 somewhere in the liner notes." (55). Stings, and yet its so true, and oddly funny. He then calls us to go back to our historical roots when he writes, "The cultural achievements of Christianity were at one time magnificent—and these accomplishments from centuries past still remain with us. From the cathedral at Chartres to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, from Beowulf to the poetry of Donne, from the Dutch realists to Handel’s Messiah, the Christian church amply demonstrated that when a lofty view of God occupies the church, a vision for glorifying Him fills and transforms a culture." (56). Amen, Wilson.
I would definitely recommend this collection of essays as an easy, wity, and enlightening read to keep you company while walking somewhere, or waiting for something. Most of the essays are a couple of pages so it makes for a simple, easy read.
March 5, 2025
Good stuff.
March 10, 2025
This is Wilson at his best, piercing, funny, ever uncompromising, short, and sweet. If Chesterton wrote in the 21st century this is almost certainly what he would sound like!
February 12, 2026
Brilliant and easy to read a couple chapters a day. Especially loved the articles explaining God’s sovereignty and other Calvinistic elements.
July 1, 2025
One of the best things about Goodreads is following Canon's audiobook editor so I know by his progress posts which titles are coming soon to the app. This one landed on Wednesday, and I finished it yesterday.
Doug's Tabletalk era was just a skosh before I really started reading him, so although these essays are all relatively long in the tooth, they seemed quite fresh to me (except the Y2K one...that felt nostalgic enough!). I know Doug's voice very well, and it was recognizable here, but a number topics and issues were ones I can recall having heard him address.
Joffre Swait's narration was great, per usual.
Doug's Tabletalk era was just a skosh before I really started reading him, so although these essays are all relatively long in the tooth, they seemed quite fresh to me (except the Y2K one...that felt nostalgic enough!). I know Doug's voice very well, and it was recognizable here, but a number topics and issues were ones I can recall having heard him address.
Joffre Swait's narration was great, per usual.
November 22, 2023
This book, a collection of Wilson articles, is like a flight of whiskeys in neat snifters: I liked some more than others, and at the end, I was drunk as a skunk in Reformed theology and ready to get in a bar fight with the resident pagans. A must read!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews