With regard to this “Violence and the Trinity” series, I got a great set of questions from a member of our congregation here, and so I asked him if I could interact with them publicly. He said sure, and so off we go. “I noticed that in a recent post you refer to several classic …
No Middle Ground
If we believe in the Bible, we believe in the Christian future. This means that the salt is not seasoning to no effect, and that the light is not shining to no effect. The labor we put forth to make the world a better place is not labor wasted (1 Cor. 15:58). Moreover, if we …
Hep Cat Theology Circles
All right, then, let us take a particularly thorny test case — America’s use of atomic bombs on Japan near the end of the Second World War. Does that measure up to just war standards? If so, why? If not, why not? The answer I would give is “of course not,” but I am aware …
Marshmallows and Cotton Balls
God governs the world in such a way as to prevent us from thinking that we can be in the right simply by holding correct opinions. God governs our lives in such a way that we have to choose between two items on this Chinese menu here, and we are not permitted to slip away …
Violence and Vilence
There is not a word in the New Testament that hints that the Church is at odds with the State because the State is violent. When the Church is walking in the light and finds herself at odds with the State it is always because of statist idolatry, not because of violence. Those who believe …
Personal Grace and Calling the Cops
Alright then, on postmill assumptions, knowing that there will come a time when they will not hurt nor destroy in all God’s holy mountain, when will we know to shut down all the fire departments? This is not a trick question. Actually, if you think about it, it might be a trick question. We will …
How Pacifism Protects War
Given how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love and esteem one another, and given how God has revealed this triune nature to the world through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the world has now been inaugurated into a new era of biblical glory. This glory is tied to worship, and so as the Church …
Thou Shalt Play With Cobras
The Old Testament prophecies of the glories of the new covenant era teach us to look forward in faith to a stupendous pileup of grace at the culmination of human history. God’s goodness to us has already been overwhelming, and much more is on the way. But in order not to get tangled up in …
Chump Change Violence
In discussions of violence and the nature of God, one of the biggest issues before us is that of sorting out the relationship of the Old Testament to the New. Also, as it happens, sorting out that relationship is critical to a host of other issues as well — from baptism to church government, from …
Tired Thinking
One of the natural but intellectually lazy responses of theologians in the 20th century was to react to the advent of nuclear weapons with the idea that just war theory was now somehow outdated or tired. There were some exceptions, like John Courtney Murray and Paul Ramsey, but the general tendency was to pay lip …