John Seel
Dr. John Seel is the former director of cultural engagement at the John Templeton Foundation. He is currently principal at John Seel Consulting LLC, a cultural impact consulting firm specializing on millennials. He, and his wife Kathryn, attend Cresheim Valley Church and live in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.
Bio last updated June 18th, 2021.
Articles by John Seel
All that glitters is not gold
By John Seel
May 22, 2015
But these dichotomies may depend on a certain, naturally dichotomizing, “either/or,” view of the world and may cease to be problematic in the world delivered by the right hemisphere, where what appears to the left hemisphere to be divided is unified, where concepts are not separated from experience, and where the grounding role of “betweenness” in constituting reality is apparent Fear not, truth is strong enough to stand up to the reality of humanness as it has done from the beginning of time A consequence of the collapse of the Enlightenment project is a wider recognition of the 3D nature of reality
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The Bastard of Irony
John Seel
September 6, 2013
Ricky Gervais' comment, "The Golden Globes are just like the Oscars—but without all that esteem," combines humor and wit on the positive side with snide and sarcasm on the negative Sternbergh goes on, "When you are living in a nation awash in bullshit, it should not be surprising when people cry out...
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Called to the Show
John Seel
August 1, 2013
Who knows more about a hare in the end: Dürer or the scientist who dissects a rabbit in a lab? Beauty is knowledge by union and empathy with, not knowledge by disassembly and distancing from Artists everywhere are being called up to the show to remind us of what it means when God said of his handiwo...
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Cultural PTSD
John Seel
May 31, 2013
But recently with great earnestness host Matt Lauer asked Zachary Quinto, "What is it about our zeitgeist that so many of the blockbuster films are apocalyptic in nature?" Zachary was on the show to promote his film, Star Trek Into Darkness, where he plays the character of Spock How shall we, the mu...
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Who is Responsible for College Seniors?
John Seel
April 15, 2013
If high schools are judged by their college acceptances, why are colleges not judged and ranked by their ability to launch their graduates into meaningful careers within their callings? The academic culture of a college cohort—whether students freely engage in discussions about ideas outside of clas...
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Small Things Done With Great Love
John Seel
March 21, 2013
and Rethinking Faith, categorizes our children as falling into three distinct groups: prodigals or those who have lost their convictions, nomads or those who are disaffected from the church, and exiles or those who are increasingly living their callings with tension And perhaps, just perhaps, this k...
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Better Than Rubbernecking
John Seel
November 23, 2012
Puritan John Flavel writes, "What the heart is to the body, that the soul is to the man; and what health is the heart, that holiness is to the soul Petraeus' failure, like that of King David's, is a bracing reminder of the importance to attend to little things—to the first things of the heart And so...
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The Barefoot Artist
John Seel
October 16, 2012
She writes, "It's high time for the art world to admit that the avant-garde is dead Current vitality of artistic creativity is found in the applied arts, particularly in industrial design ...
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A Moderate Moment
John Seel
September 5, 2012
So with all the hoopla and airtime being given the national political conventions, moderates like myself have to wonder if it is really much ado about nothing Moderates, high in demand this political cycle, are being given a rare national voice ...
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America Is Not The Greatest
John Seel
July 19, 2012
In this opening episode Daniels, playing fictional news anchor Will McAvoy, states, "America is not the greatest country in the world There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world: we're 7th in literacy, 27nd in math, 22nd in science, 49th in l...
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A Heterosexual Problem
John Seel
May 23, 2012
Self-denial and self-sacrifice are not the message of romantic comedies, reality game shows, or Oxygen sitcoms Only those marriages with a firm foundation based on reality will survive ...
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When Reality Overwhelms Satire: What The Hunger Games Reveals
John Seel
April 20, 2012
Would it not have been more culturally beneficial and honest to depict The Hunger Games as an NC-17 pornographic slasher film? What happens when satire loses its force as satire? When dystopia—"an imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppressi...
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Religion Can Make You Worse: GCB and Media Bias
John Seel
March 20, 2012
He concludes, "America's Founders, who had broken with an old order that was rife with religious persecution and warfare, forbade laws impeding free exercise of religion, abridging freedom of speech, or infringing freedom of press He writes, "A growing threat to freedom of speech is the attempt to s...