That the glory of the Lord might cover the dry land as the waters cover the sea
J. K. Rowling tells the truth in her fiction. Her twitter feed is another matter. Perhaps the limitations of the genre don’t allow her to communicate the nuance, sensitivity, and charity that characterize her fiction. Whatever the case, there’s a chasm between what she writes in her novels and what she tweets. In her fiction, …
Continue reading “J. K. Rowling Tells the Truth . . . In Her Fiction”
This morning I received an email from Airbnb on their new Church Covenant, er, “community commitment.” As I have settled convictions against their statement of faith and cannot live by their church covenant, I am happy to resign my membership in their church. I do so with the following open letter: Dear Airbnb, Your new …
Continue reading “An Open Letter to Airbnb on Their Bias and Discrimination”
Susie Meister has explained how studying religion made her a liberal, with the result that she left the right, stopped voting Republican, and started voting Democrat. I want to provide an accurate summary of her concerns and try to provide the kind of things I would say in response if I knew her: if I …
Edward Rothstein asks, “Whose History Is It, Anyway?” in the Wall Street Journal, and don’t miss this important section on the recent movie “Selma”: “Selma” is more complicated. You might conclude from the film that President Lyndon Johnson’s staff was untrustworthy on civil rights, while Johnson himself was actually nefarious, regardeding Martin Luther King Jr. …
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There’s a ton of good stuff available from the CBMW National Conference. Check it out here.
Have you heard references to the “failed policies of the past”? I always wonder if they think, as it seems, that freedom is the failed policy of the past. It seems that many in our culture want to replace freedom with more governmental control of all of life. Ironically, that’s the failed policy of the past. John Lewis Gaddis …
Continue reading “China’s Great Leap Forward: Will Central Planning Produce Human Flourishing?”
[Note: An edited version of this post was published in the e-book, God and the Gay Christian? A Response to Matthew Vines] Matthew Vines doesn’t throw his knockout punch at the beginning of his book but at the end. The book’s final sentence says of condoning same-sex relations as moral and good: “As more believers are …
Continue reading “How to Condone What the Bible Condemns: Matthew Vines Takes on the Old Testament”
In his book God and the Gay Christian, Matthew Vines assumes that he is correct to call sin righteous, slanders the Bride of Christ, and speaks as though sin produces lasting joy when he writes, “the church’s condemnation of same-sex relationships seemed to be harmful to the long-term wellbeing of most gay people. . . . …
Continue reading “God Issued the Prohibition, Not the Church”
Jonathan Merritt hosted a “conversation” between Albert Mohler and Matthew Vines, but it wasn’t really a conversation. Mohler and Vines answered questions Merritt posed. Merritt gives the last word to Vines, awarding him the Proverbs 18:17 advantage, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” Matthew Vines seems …
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In his book God and the Gay Christian, Matthew Vines wrongly suggests that the view that same-sex relations are sinful is a bad tree bearing the bad fruit of hurt feelings in the lives of people dealing with same sex attraction. He bases this argument on a misreading of Matthew 7:15–20, and on his bad exegesis he builds …
Continue reading “Matthew Vines Misrepresents the Apostle Peter”
The new book by Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships (you read that oxymoron right) releases today, and simultaneous with its release comes a book conceived and edited by R. Albert Mohler Jr., God and the Gay Christian? A Response to Matthew Vines. Dr. Mohler wrote the introduction, I …
In my contribution to the e-book God and the Gay Christian? A Response to Matthew Vines, I suggest that Vines has made pervasive use of logical fallacies. The following is a sampling of the logical and rhetorical fallacies Vines employs. This list could easily be lengthened, almost indefinitely. Vines has assumed the conclusion that embracing …
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In the most recent issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology I have an article entitled “Suffering in Revelation: The Fulfillment of the Messianic Woes.” Here’s the opening paragraph: In Revelation, John writes as one in affliction (Rev 1:9), to churches in affliction (e.g., 2:10, 13), about the affliction that will take place before kingdom …
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Steve Ham of Answers in Genesis interviewed me on Biblical Theology. I posted Part 1 recently, and Part 2 has now been made available.
Collin Garbarino started a reading group to go through Augustine’s City of God this year. Augustine’s argument about what really brought Rome down could be spoken of today’s world power: Well may they scoff, utter scamps and railers as they are, far from truebred sons of those very Romans even, who have to their credit many …
How can the church influence the wider culture and politics? That’s the question I tackle in my essay, “The Church Militant and Her Warfare.” Saul Sarabia Lopez has now translated this essay into Spanish: La Iglesia Militante y su Guerra: No Somos Otro Grupo de Interés Here is the growing list of his other translations, for which …
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Tis the season when the books of the year are being announced, and in that spirit here at For His Renown I’m inaugurating The Issachar Award, so named for the reference in 1 Chronicles 12:32 to the “the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (NAS). The Issachar …
Greg Thornbury, President of King’s College, nails it in this interview with Forbes. Commenting on how Christians can be relevant to our culture, Thornbury says of the post WW2 situation: ‘Those who looked in the face of totalitarianism and fascism and a century of holocaust and said, “What are the ideas that keep people free?” …
Continue reading “The Gospel Is Political: Thornbury on How Revelation is Hayekian”
Denny Burk has an important new book out titled What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Covenant Eyes keeps blocking the Amazon page) Christianity Today has interviewed Denny about the book. Here’s a bit of the first exchange: So. What is the meaning of sex? The reigning sexual ethic reflects a tongue-in-cheek lyric from Sheryl Crow: “If …
You don’t want to pay for other people’s contraception? Here’s what the editorial board of the New York Times thinks of your freedom of conscience and religious liberty: If the Supreme Court takes up these cases, it should soundly reject the warped view that some employers can get out of complying with the new law, and …
Continue reading “NYT Editorial Board Rejects Freedom of Conscience and Religious Liberty”