I love reading Stanley Fish's long blog posts on the New York Times web site. A recent post of his reviewed a book which, apparently, repeats Stephen Jay Gould's argument that religion and science are "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA)—that is, two separate things...
Mark Ward
You’re 1,300 in a Billion
A clever line delivered by Bill Gates to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, pointing out that the Chinese have a large talent base: “In China, when you’re one-in-a-million, there are 1,300 other people just like you.”
The Courage to Be Catholic
At the behest of a flashing sign on Wade Hampton, I’ve been listening to EWTN (Eternal World Television Network) radio. EWTN was founded in 1981 by a nun in full habit, Mother Angelica, and now broadcasts over both TV and radio. As you listen to their many radio...
The Love Chapter
You could be the world’s foremost orator, but if you aren’t motivated by love, you’re like a car alarm going off in a parking lot. You could give out God’s Word powerfully, know truth no one else does, and move mountains with your faith—but if you aren’t driven by...
Frame on Helm on Providence
John Frame in a review of Paul Helm’s The Providence of God (Leicester, U. K.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993. 241pp.) Doesn't Scripture sometimes represent God as "taking risks," being ignorant, changing his mind, giving people the power to resist his will?...
The Greatest Preacher of the Century
I was editing a lesson for the 12th grade Bible textbook put out by BJU Press, and I formulated a critical thinking question to go with the material: “According to this lesson, what rule is Charles Spurgeon an exception to? Why was he an exception?” The general rule I...
Pray for the Unborn
I don’t find myself incredibly attentive to politics, but I do care about the unborn. I have one. Pray that Bart Stupak holds on.
God’s Will
Kevin DeYoung argues in the best-titled book of 2009 that God has a sovereign will and a moral will, but He does not have what is typically thought of as an individual will of direction. He has an individual will only in the sense of those two other wills: He has in...
Towel-reading
A true story from the teacher’s edition for a BJU Press Bible Truths textbook, which I’m now halfway through editing: A Christian college student interested in a Christian girl at the same school couldn’t decide whether dating her was God’s will. In an attempt to...
Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision without Cabbage-Reading
By [Jonathan] Edwards' time witchcraft and the preternatural had almost disappeared from clerical attention. In 1690 Cotton Mather could preach about a prodigious cabbage root he had seen that had one branch shaped like a cutlass, another like a rapier, and another...