Brett McCracken's Blog, page 3

The Wisdom40 Challenge

Diet detoxes and programs for healthier eating are everywhere: plans to re-orient habits to cultivate better physical health. Whole30—a clean-eating plan designed to revamp eating habits over 30 days—is just one of many examples. These are great, but arguably some of the greatest sicknesses of the digital age are not the result of bad food diets as much as bad information diets. 

That’s the premise of my new book, The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World. We need for our spirit...

The Wisdom Pyramid Playlist

I love making playlists, and I wrote The Wisdom Pyramid while listening in my headphones to great music (mostly instrumental music). In honor of the book’s launch, I decided to make a new playlist inspired by the content of the book. Beauty is part of the Wisdom Pyramid, so enjoy this playlist as a (hopefully beautiful) experience that ponders the themes of the book.

The playlist contains 10 songs inspired by each of the six layers of the pyramid (see below image), plus a prelude and postlude se...

Like Trees Along a River

I reference Psalm 1 a few times in The Wisdom Pyramid, not only because its a beautiful wisdom psalm, but because I think its poetic imagery captures so much of the contrast between wisdom and folly. The psalm was important to me as I wrote the book. So much so, that I commissioned Poor Bishop Hooper (whose Psalm-based songs are really spectacular) to record a new live performance of their version of Psalm 1, to release in conjunction with The Wisdom Pyramid. Here’s the video:

I love how their ta...

The Folly of Denying and Destroying Creation

In America today, liberals call out conservatives for destroying creation. Conservatives call out liberals for denying creation. But the reality is both denying and destroying creation are utter folly.

Paul makes it clear in Romans 1:18–32 that it is folly to deny God’s natural revelation in creation. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (v. 22), says Paul in reference to people who know God is real but do not honor him or give thanks to him (v. 21), exchanging the truth about God for a lie ...

Three Habits Making Us Sick

The first half of my new book, The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World (releasing February 9), is called Sources of Our Sickness. In it, I highlight three particular dynamics of the information age that I think are making us foolish and sick:

Too much.

Too fast.

Too focused on me.

I devote the first three chapters of the book to digging into these challenges. Chapter One (“Information Gluttony”) is on the “too much” problem of information overload. Chapter Two (“Perpetual Novelty...

New Year. New Diet.

What are your New Year’s Resolutions this year? For a year like 2021—in which all plans seem provisional and little will be predictable—it’s hard to know what habits to prioritize. But given what we experienced in 2020, a year when we spent more and more time than ever in very ugly and often toxic online spaces, one urgent focus for our spiritual health (and mental sanity) in 2021 should be our media habit. Are you filling your heart and mind with healthy intakes? What sources are you listening ...

Morning in Marseille

There’s a certain time of day, time of year, and type of weather that reminds me of that morning. January 1, 2015. Do you have moments like that, where the right alignment of factors and feelings takes you back to a very specific place?

On that morning, after a very cold but quite lovely New Year’s Eve strolling around the port of Marseille, France—tasting Moroccan baklava, sipping Amorino hot chocolate, eating piping hot lamb tagine—we rose to a new year, a bright blue sky, and the warmth of the...

Favorites of 2020

The comforting, transporting, and healing aspects of art were in full effect in 2020. Quality music, movies, TV, and books came through as havens from the chaos of the world. Though we were deprived of some forms of the arts this year—communal moviegoing, concerts, festivals, museums—new ones were invented: virtual cinema, virtual concerts, Broadway theater on YouTube, and more.

Through it all, there was no shortage of excellent content. Here are my favorite movies, TV shows, albums, and books fr...

Recent Writings / 2020

A collection of some of my publications (movie reviews, essays, book excerpts, etc.) from April to December 2020.

Coronavirus Could Kill Consumer Christianity (April 7, 2020, The Gospel Coalition)

Reflections on the three ways COVID-19 is killing consumer Christianity

---The Gift of Hymns in the ‘Not Yet’ (April 11, 2020, The Gospel Coalition)

Interview with worship artist Greg LaFollette

---Jon Guerra’s ‘Monday Morning Prayer Music’ (May 1, 2020, The Gospel Coalition)

Interview with singer-songwriter...

How to Choose What Books to Read

In my forthcoming book, The Wisdom Pyramid, I suggest categories and sources of knowledge that are most conducive to a life of wisdom (see below image). I have a whole section and chapter on the wisdom we can glean from books. This may seem obvious (reading books for wisdom is sort of like saying eat your broccoli!), but its worth reiterating just how and why books uniquely contribute to our wisdom, which is what I try to do in my chapter on books in The Wisdom Pyramid.

But knowing it is...