JUNE 2025

During summer, many of us get away to our happy place. Whether you’re heading to the beach, exploring a new city, or visiting a Disney park—the self-described “happiest place on earth”—many of us look to these destinations as places of refreshment and renewal.

In his latest article for The Keller Center, Andrew Wilson explores our collective longing for a happy place. He suggests that such a place exists, and that this idea is one of the overarching themes of the whole Bible. From Eden to the tabernacle and temple, the happiest place on earth is wherever God dwells. In the gospel, the happiest place on earth has moved from a place to a person. When you find Jesus, you’re in the truest place of joy, regardless of your circumstances.

Andrew’s article is food for thought as many of us prepare for our own getaways in the coming months. As I read his essay (and then went back and listened to Andrew read it), I found my own idol of comfort being challenged as well as my faith being strengthened as he reminded me that everything I’m looking for in travel, in discovery, or in rest, I already have in Christ.

C. S. Lewis famously suggested that if we find in ourselves a desire that this world cannot satisfy, then the only explanation is that we were made for another world. Then our happy places can be signposts to that other world soon headed our way.

MATT LIETZEN

Content Strategist

FEATURED CONTENT

Secular Eschatologies Need to Grapple with Sin

‘Abundance’ is a secular eschatology without a doctrine of sin. It thus functions as a reminder for believers: We don’t place our deepest hope in supply-side economics but in substitutionary atonement.

The Myth of the ‘Irreligious World’

James Eglinton confronts the Western assumption that the world is becoming less religious. Drawing from the work of J. H. Bavinck, James encourages us to lean into an underappreciated Christian doctrine—the sensus divinitatis (the sense of the divine)—and show others that in our daily lives, we can’t not be religious.

England’s Assisted Suicide Bill and the Disordered Western Soul

Just last week in the United Kingdom, two Parliament votes hinged on views of human dignity. The first decriminalized abortion up to the moment of birth. The second vote approved assisted suicide and the “right” to die. James Eglinton reflects on the suicide bill and what this cultural shift reveals about ourselves.

FURTHER RESOURCES

The course led by fellows of The Keller Center will define cultural apologetics, explain its biblical and historical grounding, and demonstrate its importance for the church today. Participants will learn not only how to better exegete contemporary cultural narratives but also how to more effectively challenge these narratives and appeal holistically to the goodness, beauty, and truth of Christianity.

By also sampling some of the most frequent Western objections to Christianity, the faculty—including Rebecca McLaughlin, Gavin Ortlund, and Sam Chan—will offer ways to respond to these challenges. Participants will then be encouraged to personalize the application for their own contexts and explore together the practical ways cultural apologetics can be used in teaching, preaching, Bible studies, and day-to-day conversations.