“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .” (Ephesians 5:20). For various reasons, Thanksgiving ranks with the great holidays. Other holidays mark—and wonderfully mark—specific things that God has done for us, whether that be the grace of the Incarnation or the …
That Time Russell Moore Ran Over My Dog
Introduction: I believe that a few people are wondering if Russell Moore ran over my dog or something. In a post last week I said that Moore was setting the stage for a cultural abdication that I did not want to see happen, and in saying this I am afraid that I annoyed some people. …
Dane and Chantelle
In one way, it is very easy to have a Christian wedding, and to establish a Christian marriage. What you need to do is obtain a Christian church for the ceremony, make sure the service has a Christian liturgy, and is formally done in the name of Jesus, get a Christian minister to officiate, and …
Trumpsit. Golly.
Introduction: So a number of officio-pundits are gobsmacked, flummoxed, pole-axed, and otherwise discomfited. Brexit. The Cubs. And now this. What a year. My initial reactions run along the lines of jumping Jehoshaphat, land of Goshen, and oh, my stars and garters. But let me make a number of other snapshot observations, perhaps a tad more …
499 Years and Counting: Reformation 500
499 years ago, a monk hammered a list on a church’s door which is widely considered as firing the starting gun of the Reformation. And at our next Grace Agenda Conference, in the spring of the coming year 2017, you are invited to join us on the next lap for Reformation 500. Reformation 500 is …
Reformation Now
Introduction: We are fast approaching the five hundredth anniversary of the glorious Reformation. In just a few months we will find ourselves marking that momentous year, and our Grace Agenda conference in the spring is dedicated to a celebration of it. Now the history of the Church is always tangled, and we can never approach …
Russell Moore’s Tectonic Plates
Introduction: So I watched Russell Moore’s Erasmus Lecture for First Things, which you can see here, and there are many things to say about it. But many of them are, truth be told, positive, and so I would like to begin with that. His talk was informed, learned, thoughtful, insightful, and balanced. I would want …
The Religious Right Is Dead. Long Live the Religious Right.
In the ongoing aftermath of the ever-generous fiasco that we call the Trump campaign, Russell Moore wrote that if Donald Trump has accomplished anything of value, it is that he has snuffed out the religious right. The first half of his piece says a lot of things that are pertinent, trenchant, on the mark, and …
A Fight in the Leper Colony
Introduction: It is easy to treat the spectacle that is presidential politics in 2016 as though we were dismayed spectators, but we are not spectators at all. We are all participants. We are not watching a movie that contains a food fight in a junior high cafeteria; we are in the cafeteria. And if it …
Tacky Trump Tape
I will have more to say about this, probably Monday, but I did want to take a moment to tell everyone something important. With the release of this TackyTrumpTape, we all ought to sit down, compose ourselves, and on the count of three, put on our surprised face. What about this did anyone find surprising? …