“The reason the contemporary expression is not noticed is because everything about it is so commonplace. The forms of contemporary worship are not hard to see because they are spiritual; they are hard to see because they have thoroughly taken on the color of their surroundings. While it is true that angels are hard to …
Well, Lookee Here
“When modern man finally figured out how to navigate across oceans (hooray for us!), and when Captain Cook first reached the Hawaiian Isalands, what did he find there? Well, he found people. It appears that some ancient men with rudiemtnary technology knew how to sail across the Pacific; otherwise, they wouldn’t have done it. They …
Ugly Dies
George MacDonald once famously said that obedience is the great opener of eyes. But obedience has to come from an obedient heart, and in order to have obedient hearts, we must have new hearts. This brings us (yet again) to the foundational necessity of the new birth. Without that reality, there is absolutely nothing we …
Immediate Grace
Peter Leithart does a great job raising questions about B.B. Warfield’s book The Plan of Salvation here. I agree with just about all of Peter’s concerns, and would echo them. I certainly agree with him that at the very least a Warfieldian minimalism needs to be be filled out, and questions need to be answered. …
The Duty of Irrelevance
“There are at least two kinds of irrelevance. One is the irrelevance of offering a bicycle to an oyster. But there is another kind of irrelevance entirely, and that is the practice of setting forth the gospel of light and righteousness to those who love their darkness and iniquity. We are commanded to be irrelevant …
But Shallow Ones Can Be
“Deep sermons cannot be preached by shallow people” (Edwards, Deep Preaching, p. 43).
A Decent Sandwich in New York
Jason Stellman, author of Dual Citizens, and prosecutor of Peter Leithart in his trial in the Northwest Presbytery of the PCA, has tendered his resignation from the ministry of the PCA. You can read his letter here. The two cited reasons are his loss of faith in sola Scriptura, along with his abandonment of sola …
A Catholic Evangelical
When I write, as I often do, about the absolute necessity of the new birth, one question that has arisen is this — who or what am I arguing with? Here is a quick answer, or at least as quick as a four-fold answer can be. First, as Chesterton noticed, when Satan fell, he fell …
Book of the Month/June 2012
In this very fine book, Jonah Goldberg rises to the defense of ideology, and about time somebody did. He acknowledges that there has been a stream of Burkean/Kirkian conservative thought that has been suspicious of ideology, but this has just been the natural prudence that wants to avoid movements in the grip of one idea. …
Not Even Sure How to Spell Kleagle
In his engaging and admirable book, Bad Religion, Ross Douthat mentions me in an aside,[1] and in that particular citation, he touches on a few things that need to be addressed at the very outset of any argument for a “mere Christendom.” They can be grouped under the heading of proposals that no one should …