Those who accept theology are not necessarily being guided by taste rather than reason. The picture so often painted of Christians huddling together on an ever narrower strip of beach while the incoming tide of "Science" mounts higher and higher corresponds to nothing...
One of the reasons Harvard prof Michael Sandel's book Justice was the most memorable book I read last year—and the biggest reason I highly recommend it—is that it makes one excessively important point: you can't not have a vision of the good. You read that right. It's...
I heard Reza Aslan in an interview on NPR a few weeks ago describing to a fawning* interviewer his book Zealot, a brand new title which purports to describe "The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth." I got the definite impression that Aslan (what a sadly ironic name!)...
I'm reading through Scott Oliphint's new Covenantal Apologetics. He's one of the few people with the stature to propose that the name "presuppositionalism" be dropped—and he may very well be successful. But his approach is clearly in the same tradition. "Covenantal"...
Canon Revisited: Establishing The Origins And Authority Of The New Testament Books by Michael J. Kruger My rating: 5 of 5 stars For many years I have felt that canon was my Achilles' Heel as a Protestant (wannabe) theologian. I felt the sting of the charge that I am a...
Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal by T. David Gordon My rating: 4 of 5 stars Like most of us, T. David Gordon is a professional media ecologist and a former conservative Presbyterian pastor. Okay, perhaps that combination is not so...
Preaching weekly through Genesis over the last year or so has given me a much deeper appreciation for the literary artistry of Moses. We're in chapter 46, and I see better than ever that the themes of seed, land, and blessing are truly ubiquitous after chapter 12....
I shared with you not long ago MacIntyre's opening illustration in After Virtue, an illustration drawn from Canticle for Leibowitz. In it, all scientists are killed in retribution for a nuclear holocaust. Over time, people try to regain the language of science. They...
There are only two basic categories: the Creator and the created. If we do not worship God, we will focus on something in creation and elevate it to the status of divinity. We will worship a false god. Our intrinsically religious nature will never allow us not to...
Five Views on Apologetics by Steven B. Cowan My rating: 3 of 5 stars Once upon a time, a fellow Christian young man, age 20 or so, like me, invited me to go witnessing in the downtown area where I live. We ran into a young lady who was reading Neale Donald Walsch's...
Death by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent by N.D. Wilson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Witty randomness submitted to an overarching point. That's N.D. Wilson, and I've read both of his books in the witty-but-submitted-randomness genre (the other being Notes from the...
I'm a Philistine. Not into poetry like a well-rounded liberal arts grad ought to be. I have nothing against poetry; I simply never got into it. But Billy Collins I like, and I've been reading a collection of his poems called Aimless Love. So much humor and insight....