“On the dance floor itself, a great seething mass of people move like maggots in a tin. With so large a number of people crammed into so small a space, it is astonishing that they is no social contact among them. Most of the pairs do not even look into each other’s eyes; because of …
First Time for Everything
I understand that a bunch of you are going to be at the Evangelical Theological Society Conference in San Diego this week (Nov. 14-16). Well, as it turns out, Canon Press is going to be there as a vendor for the first time, and they are going to have books for sale. Now I understand …
First Edition Lewis
Interested in Lewis first editions? Why not? Well, okay, maybe the price is why not, and maybe you wouldn’t want to read through it with a highlighter when you get it. But, that said, think about the investment potential. What will these puppies be worth in another hundred years? Think about that.
He Will Stand Before Kings
Chapter seven, “The Tie That Divides,” was informative and quite good. In it Darryl traces the rise of the Protestant ecumenical movement in the mainline denominations, along with the evangelical attempts to counter it, whether by competition or by withdrawal. There is not very much to differ with here, so I won’t try to gin …
Unsuccessful Bracketing
Throughout the course of this book Darryl says many good things, and makes many fine observations. Unfortunately, they are set in the context of this dualistic background of his, which make the result resemble a collection of diamonds, rubies, and sapphires set in a fitting of tarnished and battered sheet metal. Chapter six on “impersonal …
Baptism and Covenant Life
INTRODUCTION: Baptism in water can be a complicated subject—and yet the author of Hebrews treats it as one of the Christian “basics.” This should make us wary because the evangelical Christian world doesn’t have this sorted out yet, and yet it should also make us eager to sort it out—to grow up into maturity as …
Just Like Alice’s Restaurant
“We build temples to the gods of commerce, and this is why the modern church looks like a shopping mall, sprawling and flat, plenty of parking, Visa and MasterCard accepted. In one city, a church mailed out hundreds of thousands of brochures hawking their wares. Come to our church, they said, and we’ll give you …
Machen and Wilkins
Darryl’s next chapter, on the rise of a democratized Protestant faith in America is quite good, and very helpful. Toward the end of the chapter, his doubts about democracy start come to the fore. “Rather than learning about democracy from Christianity, more often than not American Protestants have felt compelled to defend democracy under a …
Rampaging Christian Wowserism
Darryl Hart concludes his next chapter with the correct observation that “the phrase ‘under God’ raises more questions than it apparently answers” (p. 123). This not only is a fair challenge, but it is one we need to take up. If I might, I would like to borrow a metaphor from Warfield, and apply it …
Mary and Miriam
“Surah 19:29 . . . claims that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was a sister of Aaron. Because Surah 66:12 describes Mary as the daughter of Imram (the Amram of Exodus 6:20), it would seem that Muhammad was again confused about the facts. He had evidently mistaken Mary (the mother of Jesus) for Miriam (Moses’ …