“When the standards of Christian leadership are all feminine, the individuals most obviously qualified to be Christian leaders will be women. And so this poses a dilemma — why should we exclude women from leadership when they are so obviously qualified for what we call leadership? At that point we divide, with some calling for …
Strange New Respect
The pope appears to have decided to score some easy points with those who are currently whooping the climate change thing. I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I can’t stand it. Hitching our collective guilt wagon to the bogus science of climate change? But on the other hand, this does do my Protestant …
About As Stark as It Gets
Islamic law has its own ways of dealing with adultery. Jesus had another. “And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law …
And Me
Recently, one of my grandchildren (she is only one) saw the bread being distributed during this Supper, and began cheerfully saying, “And me. And me.” This is something we all need to learn how to say, because it is right at the heart of biblical faith. This is the child-like approach that Jesus required of …
Audio Reading of Post
Salt and Light
Last Lord’s Day we began a series of exhortations on our civic responsibilities. We considered the fact that we have an important local election coming up, and we balanced that against our repeated emphasis that politics is not to become an idol. At the same time, we are not supposed to flee from our civic …
It Took a Long Time for Kinkos to Get the Image Onto that Marshmallow
We have recently been discovering that a lot of people don’t even know that Credenda comes out in an audio version. In part you might not know because you don’t get Canon’s e-newsletter, and if that is the case then you also missed out on a big giveaway. The e-postcard they sent to subscribers the …
AntiChrist and Beast
Few teachings in the Bible have been as wildly misunderstood as the teaching of the apostle John on the Antichrist. Opinions and speculation about him are commonplace. Unfortunately, the assumptions made about Antichrist are usually far away from the actual teaching of the Bible on the subject. “Little children, it is the last hour; and …
The Puritan Heart Set Free
“In theological language, no man can be saved by works. The whole purpose of the ‘gospel’, for Tyndale, is to deliver us from morality. Thus, paradoxically, the ‘puritan’ of modern imagination — the cold, gloomy heart, doing as duty what happier and richer souls do without thinking of it — is precisely the enemy which …
Get a Bit and Bridle on Your Gifts
“Watch your natural gifts and tendencies and idiosyncrasies. Watch them. What I mean is that they will tend to run away with you. It can all be summed up in a phrase — watch your strength. Not so much your weaknesses: it is your strength you have to watch, the things at which you excel, …
Not Like Changing Denominations
“The most dangerous thing a Muslim can do is leave Islam—no matter what the reason” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. 59).