Okay, then, the Manhattan Declaration. Things have been busy, and I just now got around to reading it. I want to take the odd stance of applauding and supporting something that I could not sign. In order to make sense of this, I have to dump a few things out on the table first. I …
Sweet Defiance
Why sweet defiance? In Psalm 119:23, we are told, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” Now these are wonderful words in every believing ear. We could do some nice graphics work with it, no doubt — along with a picture of a beautiful sunset and beach, have …
Four Years to Go
I have recently posted on the revolutionary nature of industrialized education. The modern university system was born in the revolutionary era, and was a function of people abandoning the historic Christian forms of higher education, and trading them in for a style more in keeping with what they thought was promised by the Industrial Revolution. …
The Spirit’s Work
You have often been reminded that in this meal we partake of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We do not do this because He is somehow locally present on this Table—for He is at the right hand of the Father, and not here. But Paul is very clear that we are made partakers …
An Edifying Use of Bandwidth?
We would be interested in some feedback, if you all wouldn’t mind. Not on the sermon itself, actually, but on the vehicle of delivery. We know that a number of you listen to Christ Church messages via audio download, or by having them mailed to you. The elders of Christ Church recently approved an experiment, …
College as a Counter-Revolution
My colleague Roy Atwood is fond of reminding people of the revolutionary origins of our modern system of higher education. We don’t think much about it anymore, and simply describe it as “going off to college.” But going off to college now is quite a different thing than what it once was, and the difference …
Legislating Sunshine
It is starting to look as though he might be doing it all on purpose. Many years ago, William Simon commented that right wingers are prone to conspiracy theories precisely for this reason — it seems apparent to them that the destructive nature of the proposed policies A, B, and C are evident to all, …
Two Sizes Too Large
Carl Henry once said, “If evangelicals lose the battle for the mind of contemporary man it will be in their own colleges.” That’s the kind of prophetic and semi-inscrutable statement that we could use a lot more of, and which unfortunately, we don’t hear a very much any more. Since Henry wrote those words, the …
Unity and Uniformity
This post on the next chapter of Franke’s book will not be all that long. He says a number of true (and obvious) things about the diversity that has existed in the Christian church over the centuries, and which will no doubt continue to exist. He then points to the indigenization principle (God takes us …
Nadil Malik Hasan and the Street Light
A joke is told about a drunk who was crawling around under a street lamp on his hands and knees. He had been there for some time, and another guy came along and said, “What are you looking for?” The answer was that he was looking for his lost car keys, and so the new …