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, […]
Category Archives: Cultural Engagement
An Open Letter to Airbnb on Their Bias and Discrimination
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 […]
Will Following Jesus Make You Liberal?
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 […]
Don’t Try to Learn History from the Movies
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. […]
CBMW National Conference
There’s a ton of good stuff available from the CBMW National Conference. Check it out here.
China’s Great Leap Forward: Will Central Planning Produce Human Flourishing?
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 […]
How to Condone What the Bible Condemns: Matthew Vines Takes on the Old Testament
[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 […]
God Issued the Prohibition, Not the Church
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. . . . […]
How Matthew Vines Defends God and the Gay Christian
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 […]
Matthew Vines Misrepresents the Apostle Peter
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 […]
Matthew Vines Misunderstands Jesus
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 […]
A Selection of Logical Fallacies from God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines
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 […]
Suffering in the Book of Revelation: Fulfilling the Messianic Woes
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 […]
Answers in Genesis and Biblical Theology
Steve Ham of Answers in Genesis interviewed me on Biblical Theology. I posted Part 1 recently, and Part 2 has now been made available.
Augustine on Rome’s Real Weakness
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 […]
Spanish Translation of “The Church Militant and Her Warfare”
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 […]
The 2013 Issachar Award: For the Book that Best Understands the Times and Teaches What God’s People Should Do
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 […]
The Gospel Is Political: Thornbury on How Revelation is Hayekian
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?” […]
Hot and Holy: CT Interviews Denny Burk
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 […]
NYT Editorial Board Rejects Freedom of Conscience and Religious Liberty
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 […]