“The shameful cult of human personalities which tarnished the life of the first century Corinthian church still persists in Christendom, and a most improper and unbecoming regard is paid to some church leaders today” (John Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, p. 101).
Jupiterian Amillennialism
Darryl Hart is easy to read, but, in another sense, he is very hard to read. His second chapter “Whose Freedom, Which Liberty?” is a treasure trove of historical information, but his discussion also includes, it must be said, an astonishing oversight. I don’t know what — other than an amillennialism that appears to have …
City on a Hill
This post ought to be fairly straightforward, because this next chapter by Darryl was, taking one thing with another, outstanding. Of course I am suspicious of where he is placing it, but still the historical review he gives is very, very good. He begins with a discussion of the famous American trope, “a city on …
That Faithy Feel
Someone of Darryl Hart’s intelligence and learning is incapable of writing a book without offering many penetrating insights, and this book promises to be no exception. He starts out by observing the “tsunami of faith-based politics” (p. 3). He objects to this, as he should, because government sponsorship of a generic faith, or groups that …
When Sin and Death Build the City
I enjoyed getting to meet Darryl Hart at the Auburn Avenue conference last year, and also enjoyed our discussion on the Federal Vision over at De Regno Christi. He’s a good guy, and has many valuable things to offer the church, particularly in the realm of historical analysis. But in our discussion at DRC, the …
The Puritan Epithalamion
“To be sure, there are standards by which the early Protestants could be called ‘puritanical’; they held adultery, fornication, and perversion for deadly sins. But then so did the Pope. If that is puritanism, all Christendom was then puritanical together. So far as there was any difference about sexual morality, the Old Religion was the …
Garlanding the Bull
Chapter 7 of Gelernter’s book is on “The Emergence of Modern Americanism,” basically covering the period of the Second World War and the Cold War that followed. As in all his chapters, he is full of interesting and useful information, but he applies it in wildly skewed ways. If Americanism is a religion (and he …
The Christian Future of Great Britain
It is no secret to readers of this blog that I am postmill in my eschatological convictions. It is also no secret that I am something of a cultural critic — things all around us, at least according to me, seem to be falling apart. This apparent dichotomy used to bug me too — back …
American Zionism and the Creed
David Gelernter really celebrates the Puritans “To understand America and Americanism, you must understand those Puritans. They are a difficult proposition, an intellectual handful. They were religious fanatics. But their intolerance gave birth to toleration; their quest for religious freedom yielded freedom in general; and their devotion to the Bible and the biblical idea of …
Their Consistency is Our Hypocrisy
“What the Crusaders did to the Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem in 1099 was as bad as what the Muslims had done to countless Christian cities before and after that time, but the carnage was less pardonable because, unlike the Muslims’, it was not justifiable by Christian religious tenets. From the distance of almost a millennium, …