Theology That Bites Back
The main category for book reviews and cultural interaction.
Introduction: Please allow me to begin with the outrageous statement. I will make all suitable and needed qualifications later. Stop complaining already. Rightly understood, the institution of marriage is foundational to the gospel, and it is a form of idolatry to deny this. I want to set this claim alongside the increasingly popular idea that …
“We don’t want the last judgment to stop every mouth. We don’t want the realities of the last judgment to stop our mouths. We are modern men and want the doctrine of the last judgment to give us an opportunity to run our mouths” (Mere Fundamentalism, p. 57).
“We often talk as though Hell were nothing but a gigantic miscarriage of justice, the end result of God somehow losing all sense of proportion. We want to think of the Last Judgment as requiring an impressive explanation and defense because we think of it as that day at the end of the world when …
Alabama has done a wonderful thing in outlawing abortion. I want to commend her legislature and her governor for doing the right thing, and every thoughtful Christian should be humming under their breath: “in Birmingham they love the governor, we all did what we could do.” There will be many occasions in the months to …
“Those who are spiraling downward in the final lostness are people who are in the process of losing the capacity for relationship. Scripture describes that kind of relationship as one which bites and devours, or which wants a relationship with others so that someone might be within striking distance. But eventually everyone moves out of …
The third chapter of Woke Church is really quite good, and therein lies a tale. I want to commend Eric Mason in this, and for two things. First, in my interaction a few years ago with Thabiti, I pressed the point that Scripture really does contain more than a few angular texts when it comes …
“Sin must be against someone. It is not primarily a matter of being against a rule—for a rule does not exist without a rule-giver, or the specified persons that the rule concerns . . . whenever the law is broken, that means that someone has been wronged, grieved, or hurt” (Mere Fundamentalism, pp. 52-53).
On Revoice and Matthew Lee Anderson: Since I was mentioned….I would like the chance to clear up what I mean by “apostate” as it relates to Matthew Lee Anderson. First, I am not proclaiming that I have knowledge of his eternal destiny. Here’s what I do mean. MLA is:1. So liberal that the thoroughly milquetoast …
“Sin is necessarily parasitic. Sin is bent righteousness. Sin cannot exist in its own name, it cannot stand on its own feet. Goodness, being an attribute of God, simply is. Evil is a knock-off, a corruption, a twisting, and a deviation” (Mere Fundamentalism, p. 52).
