I've been waiting for a long time for someone to say what I've been thinking about radical Islam, and now writer Kenan Malik has done it. On the one hand, he points out, Muslims are not the only religious group involved in perpetrating horrors. From Christian militias...
Culture
Condescending to Men of Low Estate
Stereotyping and prejudice are endemic to humanity. Conservatives have done it (and do it), and secularists it have done it (and do it). Your vision of a group colors your interpretation of actions performed by individuals in that group. It takes a conscious effort at...
Five Responses to the Newsweek Screed
The 9,000-word, Merry-Christmas, anti-Christian Newsweek screed opens with the following attempt at journalistic objectivity: They wave their Bibles at passersby, screaming their condemnations of homosexuals. They fall on their knees, worshipping at the base of...
Affection Drives Cognition
As we say at BJU Press, affection drives cognition. And it's nice to hear scientistic materialists coming close to saying so. Frequently they arrive at truth despite themselves because, even if they suppress it, their microscopes are still by necessity trained on...
A False Dichotomy on Ferguson?
I've been looking for wisdom on events in Ferguson. I have tried not to confuse my white, redheaded, middle class perspective with a truly biblical perspective—not least because I have to preach on Sundays to a (tiny) half-black congregation, and I'd better speak as...
Carols from Kings
Have you ever heard a boy soprano? In real life they quaver a lot, but in Britain they're awesome—especially together. I sort of knew this from CDs I got in college, but it wasn't until I got a DVD and saw the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols sung by the Choir of...
The Nude Beach Principle
The myth of neutrality is one of the most important ideas a Christian can get hold of in this secular age. Here's a concrete example of that illusion, provided by excellent Catholic writer Anthony Esolen in "The Illusion of Neutrality": Suppose that Surftown has one...
When Scholarly Arguments about Homosexuality Are Inaccessible
No matter what field of study you name, there will be people in it who are arguing over your head—even if it's your own field of study, the one you trained in. There are countless topics in the broad field of biblical studies that I am not qualified to say much if...
Twitter Exchange with Evangelicals for Marriage Equality Spokesman
Yesterday I got a surprise response on Twitter to my article, "Five Reasons Not to Sign the Evangelicals for Marriage Equality Petition," from the spokesperson for the group, Moody Bible Institute graduate Brandan Robertson. It's funny: during the interchange below I...
Ivy League Mottoes
Ivy League Mottoes: Brown University In Deo Speramus (In God We Hope) Columbia University In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen (In Thy light shall we see light) Cornell University I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study. Dartmouth...
Five Reasons not to Sign the Evangelicals for Marriage Equality Petition
It didn't take a prophet to predict this. So I'm not handing in my cessationist credentials when I point out that I did in fact say this was coming: an organized group of evangelical Christians has come out with a legal argument for same-sex "marriage," one which...
Alone in the New America
This article describes the working-class demographic quite literally surrounding my church (with one notable exception, a gated community on the north side). The article offers an accurate diagnosis of their woes—through terribly sad anecdotes—and then an insufficient...