In his next chapter, Peter Hitchens writes about the threshhold that England crossed during his boyhood. The chapter is about the culture-wide failure of nerve, and is entitled “A Loss of Confidence.” Here he astutely points out that atheism is not so much an individual opinion, honestly derived from the force of inexorable arguments, but …
Too Clever By Half
The first chapter of Peter Hitchens’ book is entitled “The Generation Who Were Too Clever to Believe.” He begins with his own story, how he burned his Bible as a fifteen-year-old in full revolt against everything he had been brought up to believe (p. 17). “At that moment I knew — absolutely knew — that …
A Carnival of Adolescent Petulance
In my ongoing discussions of atheism, I have in this place reviewed Christopher Hitchen’s book, God is Not Great, and now, Lord willing, I will do the same thing with his brother’s new book. That book is entitled The Rage Against God, which will release in early May here in the States. For UK readers, …
A Tad More on Atheism
The “On Faith” page of The Washington Post has published a short commentary from me on the new atheism. Here.
The Free Safety of Orthodoxy Considered as a Tub of Pudge
Chapter 7 of Franke’s book is where an astute defensive coordinator starts to get a good idea where the wide receiver is going to run his route. But since our free safety of orthodoxy has spent way too much time at KFC and is a tub of pudge, it begins to look as though we …
Sold Down the River
This post on chapter five of Franke’s book will be a little, short one. That is because this chapter was unexceptional in itself, and said many good, wholesome things. It was on “Jesus, Truth, and the Trinity,” and said many things familiar to every orthodox Christian — ultimate truth is a Person (p. 43), truth …
Like He Was David Copperfield
Like virtually all evangelicals trying to go with the zeitgeist flow, John Franke has to do some foot dragging here and there. He has to throw in a few sturdy absolutes from time to time, and this puts some believers at their ease. “The Spirit is guiding the community of faith into the truth, purposes, …
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 …
In the Mouths of Theological Blowhards
In his second chapter, John Franke says a number of reassuring things, that would have been just fine in another setting. But here, they are not. For example and to wit: “An understanding of the situated and contextual character of truth and Christian theology provides a theological framework from which to embrace Christian pluralism without …
The Plurality of Truth Moonwalk
John Franke begins by asking and answering the question, “Do you believe in truth?” He allows that the easiest thing for emergents to do is to just say yes, in order to reassure everybody. But then he gets into his explanation of why he thinks this is an odd question, and all the reasons why …