Really enjoyed our time with the Apologia gang while they were here in Moscow. Here is one interview they conducted (with more to follow). The topic is enjoyment of God, reading the story you are in, moment by moment. Do you really believe what you think you do?
Does Nature Have a Nature?
I just finished listening to a talk which addressed the question of whether regeneration should be defined as a change in nature, and was reminded of something from Wodehouse. Some minds are like the soup in a bad restaurant — better left unstirred. Two basic things came to mind, and I will let them float …
Confession and Works
One of the things that is very much part of the DNA of our public ministry is the teaching that Christians need to keep short accounts with God, confessing their sins regularly and honestly. The teaching of Scripture on the subject is plain enough. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: But whoso confesseth …
Such That the Culture Notices
So it appears that I owe N.T. Wright an apology. For years I have read him as a postmillennialist who wouldn’t admit it, one who inexplicably wouldn’t use the standard terminology. But it now seems that this is not accurate at all — he is more like an amillennialist who won’t use the standard terminology. …
No Need to Count the Barnacles
In a previous post, I alluded to the important matter of the marks of the church. Historically among the Reformed, these have been considered as Word and sacrament. Some have added a third mark, that of discipline, but I think this represents a small but significant confusion. This is a fallen world, which means that …
A Nut Brown Discomfort
Timothy LeCroy has written about ecumenism and the Eucharist here, and a couple of things come to mind. Please keep in mind that I write with the porridge of my Scots Calvinist heritage sticking to my ribs, so to speak, and while this does not blow up the ecumenical venture, it does make it more …
Protestant and Proud
No, no, not that kind of pride. The good kind. The kind that nobody objects to, like when you are proud of your kid’s performance in the school play. Don’t think of this as a long sustained argument. Think of it more as a coherent rant. But I do not rant with beads of sweat …
Wife Beating and the Idea of Revelation
Revelation presupposes three things — a revealer, a recipient, and a message with an accompanying hermeneutic. There is one who speaks, there are the ones spoken to, and there is the message along with the medium that carries that message. That medium would include all the created world, with its atmosphere and sound waves, papyrus, …
A Bucket With No Bottom
I am currently reading A Humble Inquiry by Jonathan Edwards, in which he explains the reasons why he was putting some doctrinal daylight between himself and his predecessor Solomon Stoddard. And since these basic issues, being what they are, cannot ever go away, and because in addition they have become deeply embedded in the American …
Excommunicated Gnats, Ordained Camels
So let us talk about C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright and the topic of human evolution. I have recently taken N.T. Wright to task for his take on those who oppose his approach to theistic evolution. As it happened, just after posting that well-thought out epistolary sunbeam of mine, I was listening in my truck to …