As the previous post put it, I was out of town for a bit. While there, I discovered through various communications back to Moscow, that, contrary to all my naive assumptions, Lewis Carroll is not dead. But I just got in last night, and wanted to refrain from commenting on anything until I saw the …
Part of the Problem
President Bush was recently in Turkey, and while there he commended that nation for having secular laws and simultaneously being a people of faith. This kind of compartmentalization that we are exporting around the world (entrenched as a way of life here) is precisely the attitude that is crippling the American church. The fact that …
Owning the Curse
Owning the curse is not applauding the curse. Insisting that we deal with the manifold problems within the church first is not the same thing as saying we are abandoning the civil realm to the secularists. Insisting that the ship be made seaworthy is not to abandon the voyage. To illustrate what we are talking …
Out of a Clear Blue Sky
True story. My wife and I earlier today were driving back home from the airport in Spokane, and about a second before it hit, I saw a cloud of what looked like pellets coming down out of the sky toward us. A bunch of them hit the windshield, and a moment later revealed their true …
Owning the Curse
We are starting to get thoughtful disagreements to our latest edition of Credenda, particularly on the issue of “owning the curse.” There is much to clarify and discuss, and after that, to debate, but allow me to head off one misunderstanding that I see developing right now. “Owning the curse” does not mean capitulation to …
Feminism and the Trinity
One of the central idolatrous ideologies of our day is feminism. Although it is just one of the hydra heads (the monster being egalitarianism), it is nevertheless one of the most important hydra heads. This is because God created us male and female, and our sexual identity is right at the center of the image …
Party Spirit and Education Options
How is it possible to study the various Christian options for the education of your kids, come to settled conclusions, be prepared to articulate those conclusions for any who are interested, and yet avoid the besetting sin of factionalism and party spirit? After all, we have Christian parents who use homeschooling, others who use homeschool …
Ronald Reagan, R.I.P.
The passing of Ronald Reagan is important on a number of levels. Commentators have noted everything from the impact on the current election, to legacy of Reagan’s anti-communism. There is much to add on all this, but in the current context I simply want to note one thing. This is coming from someone who voted …
Christendom Lite
Many years ago I wrote a piece for the journal Antithesis on the necessity of Christian education. Later on, I picked that article up and modified it so that it became a chapter in Standing on the Promises. As part of the continuing debate on education in the Southern Baptist Convention, the editor of the …
Your Bastard Child
We are nearing the end of the first week of homosexual marriage in Massachusetts. It is easy enough to see the incoherence of this dead end, but hard for us to see where it all started. It is especially hard for evangelical Christians to see where it all began, because it all began with us, …