James Davison Hunter’s next chapter is a very fine review of cultural changes throughout the church’s history. He plainly demonstrates the importance of many of the active agencies that effect true cultural change — the place of networks, the role of elites, the contribution of wealth, etc. Hunter reviews some of the great shifts in …
An Insurrection Rather
For those who like to read political tea leaves, the next place to look is Arizona. I am not talking about the turmoil concerning their immigration law, but rather the primary contest between McCain and Hayworth. I have said before that I think we are in the early stages of a tax revolt, and each …
A Gnarled Key to Many Worlds
“We are familiar with the picture of a spoiled rich child with a family room full of expensive toys. He sits there in the corner, engaged in a furious sulk. Meantime, across town another little boy is filled with the goodness of life, running around in his back yard all afternoon, wonderfully occupied with a …
Continuity Preaching
“Discipleship preaching is ‘continuity preaching’ — moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the routine to the challenging, from immaturity to maturity” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 230).
The Trendy-Makers of Contempo-Evangelicalism
In Chapter 9, Peter Hitchens begins to take on some of the standard arguments advanced by the new atheists. The first, their Goliath taunting the armies of Israel, is the charge that religion is the source of endless conflict. If we want deliverance from strife and sectarian violence, we must have a secular state. And …
Time for the World to Get Up
INTRODUCTION: The Incarnation of the Word, and the resurrection of that Word from the dead, has entirely remade the world. We fail to recognize this because we don’t understand history—and the way the world actually was before Christ came into it. But humanity lived through a long night indeed, and when Christ came, the sun …
Over You and Your Irritating Neighbor
The first thing that we learn about the Spirit of God in the Bible is that He hovered over matter. God the Father had spoken that matter into existence, and the Word which was powerfully spoken that way was God the Son, God the Word. And then the Spirit came, and He hovered over the …
Way Too Clever
Sometimes we are puzzled by the requirements of Scripture. For example, why would the apostle Paul have to caution the Corinthians in this way? “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed . . .” (1 Cor. 12:3a). Why would a group of Christians need …
Piperian Hedonism 3.0
The first thing to note is that John Piper has done the Church a valuable service in establishing the inescapability of hedonism in the well-tempered service of God. The point is hard for many Christians to swallow, but it is equally hard to avoid. On this subject, I would refer anyone with questions about it …
A Can Opener for the Peaches
“We are all familiar with the man who has everything. God frequently gives men many external blessings — without giving them the spiritual taste buds to enjoy what they have. This is a sore affliction from the Lord. If we understand the point here, we metaphorically see a man without any taste buds who can …