The next chapter that Harris offers is a wee one, asking whether or not the truth he is offering might be bad for us. He doesn’t think so, and offers his own testimony — how “losing the sense of free will has only improved [his] ethics” (p. 45). There he goes again, writing as though …
Chesterton on Bunyan
One of my pet peeves (revealed to the world most recently in Wordsmithy) is the way that many modern Christians have been cool-shamed into a patronizing attitude on the literary merits of John Bunyan. I recently finished a great collection of Chesterton quotes put together by Kevin Belmonte, way to go Kevin, and was pleased …
A Review of Sider
BOOK BRIEFSRich Christians in an Age of Hungerby Ronald Sider(Intervarsity Press, 1977, $4.95) Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger is a dangerous book. Although in a few places Ron Sider shows that his heart is in the right place and balances his pronouncements in a biblical fashion, the book as a whole displays incredible …
The Next to Last Rock in the Avalanche
I don’t think I should be too severe in these reviews of Sam Harris’ most recent book. When one of the country’s leading atheists, the author of The End of Faith, trumpets the end of atheism, this is actually something that Christians should welcome and celebrate. Right? The fact that he doesn’t (as of yet) …
What Fathers Are For
INTRODUCTION:The fact that God is a perfect Father is a two-edged sword, and we must take care that we not emphasize just one of them—lest we damage our souls . . . and our families. God is a perfect Father, and we are fallen creatures. This means that God is a perfect Father as an …
You Already Have a Savior
When we turn away into various forms of idolatry, we are asking other gods to do what only God can do. As we will consider in the message this morning, fathers provide and protect. False fathers promise to provide and protect, and then fail to deliver. This is the history of idolatry—they over promise and …
Receiving Your Token
Are you discouraged? Do you have troubles pressing in on you? Are some of your troubles of such a nature that you can see no possible way out? God is still your Father, and God wants you to learn how to remember in the dark what you knew in the light. God wants you to …
Mother of Cities
“The Christian church is far more than mother of the faithful. She is called to be mother of cities. And where shall the root of these new cities be planted? Where the Word and sacrament are. If God grants a genuine reformation, it will be one like that which was granted in the sixteenth century, …
Half Are Always Below Average
“I want to prepare you by setting down a few home truths about preachers and preaching. The first can be put briefly. Great sermons will always be in short supply. Even in the case of first-rate preachers, the church occasionally has to settle for third-rate performances. And in the case of second-rate preachers . . …
An Infinite Plane of Green Velvet
The next chapter was a brief one, and so I will try to be brief as well. The upshot is that Harris shows (and I think he does show) that quantum indeterminate events in the brain cannot be a foundation for free will. If everything is determined, then the cosmos is a locomotive on the …