The Arrogance of the Urban: Part 2
It is time to abandon the evangelical quest to be “relevant”.
We have an unfortunate tendency to chase what is cool in our culture and make it the centerpiece of our ministry (often denigrating other ministries that don’t share our vision). Meanwhile, we don’t realize that we are really about 10 years behind the cultural trends anyway. We are perennial late-comers to what our world thinks... Continue Reading
Same American Dream, Different Zip Code
Like the suburban planning of a few decades ago, New Urbanism promises to set up the conditions for everyone’s social success.
It is not where you pursue social success but the Dream lies in the fact that one expects planned success to be tangibly achieved. In this regard, elites who planned the suburbs for social success, through public/private arrangements, and elites in the cities are both driven by the same cause: a lust for planned social... Continue Reading
“Gay Marriage” Shows Us Why Theology Matters
Three ways Biblically sound theology will help in the same-sex marriage debate
To invite homosexuals to embrace themselves so that they are no longer lonely is agreeing with those on the left that God was wrong in ordaining the family as one man and one woman together in marriage. It is agreeing with those whom God is pouring out His wrath. It is agreeing with those who... Continue Reading
Explaining the Universal Phenomenon of Religion
You can go anywhere on the globe and you’ll find evidence of cultic practices of sacrifice
But today the need for sacrifices to be made in faith is forgotten—we hear that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re sincere. In fact, the basic requirement of sacrifice is unknown—it doesn’t matter what your religious practices are. It doesn’t matter what you worship. It only matters that you do worship.... Continue Reading
Unwashed hands and the internet
After a year without the internet, Paul Miller discovers the problem is with him, not his computer
We can cut ourselves off from every potentially corrupting outside influence in the universe, but we can’t cut ourselves off from the corruption inside us. We can cut off one head, and seven others, even uglier, will appear. We can barricade our homes, churches, and schools against the “world,” and the “world” will still bubble... Continue Reading
Baptismal Efficacy
The Offer/Reception Model as Antidote to the Federal Vision
I have long thought that the FV is asking some important and even crucial questions but coming up with some unfortunate answers—answers that move it, as it were, beyond the Reformed confessional reservation. While the offer/reception model of sacramental efficacy as found in Calvin and the Westminster Confession does not answer all the questions we... Continue Reading
This Sin but Not That Sin
HOMOSEXUALITY
It is as if the sins of adultery or fornication are wrong, but a sort of normalized wrong, whereas homosexuality is a “weird” or “unusual” sin. What we fail to recognize is that every sin from the mildest gossip to the wildest orgy is a mark of the fall, proof of sins twisting God’s good... Continue Reading
Did Evangelical or Liberal Protestants Have a Better Week?
First came the news of Mark Sanford’s victory in South Carolina’s First District to Congress. For anyone who remembers Sanford’s well publicized marital infidelity, it must have struck many observers as strange that evangelical Protestants — I hear South Carolina is thick with them — would return Sanford to public office. … And then came... Continue Reading
Sneering at Parents, Hiding Behind “Science”
The Emergency Contraception Controversy
Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post saw through the smokescreen. “They lost me on the word women,” she wrote. Parker pointed to the argument “that any interference with the over-the-counter sale of Plan B to any female of any age is blocking a woman’s right to self-determination.” She retorted: “Fifteen-year-olds, where the Obama Administration wants... Continue Reading
Is Belief in the Second Coming of Christ Bad for Creation?
Do you believe that Jesus will return to Earth someday? Then you probably don’t care about environmental devastation and the catastrophic loss of life of future generations. That’s the absurd conclusion drawn in an academic paper published in the latest issue of Political Research Quarterly. Do you believe that Jesus will return to Earth someday?... Continue Reading
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