Frame on Enns
John Frame has an excellent review of Peter Enns's Inspiration and Incarnation that he just posted to his website. (Thanks to Brian Collins for these excerpts.) Regarding the first section of the book, Frame says, "I think the 'problems' are artificially created by Enns." Also interesting is Frame's last paragraph in light of Enns's claim that the book was aimed as a primer for evangelical non-scholars who don't understand these issues: So though I find much to agree with in this book, in the...
My Wedding Vows
Originally my thinking about wedding vows ran like this: The Bible doesn't require a church wedding; it's more the best of my cultural tradition that I'm honoring when I don a tux and Laura a white gown. That cultural tradition is primarily English, as are the vows which in various mangled forms survive to the present: "for richer, for poorer," etc. Why not, then, go ad fontes and use the original Church of England vows? I discovered why not when I looked: Many contemporary audiences of good...
Stanley Fish and the Norming Norm
Who gets to define "normal"? Some in the deaf community do not want cochlear implants because giving them hearing would deny their identity. One sufferer of autism likewise wrote that the doctors searching for a cure for his condition are well nigh guilty of attempted genocide: "I speak for many when I say we are happy the way we are." Stanley Fish eloquently and incisively deconstructs common appeals to a norm in his New York Times blog post for June 1. I do enjoy reading him for just this...
“Fundamentalist” vs. “Critical”
Some startling headlines are coming out about a major international survey of attitudes toward the Bible. Fundamentalists, it seems, don't know their Bibles as well as Christians (and even non-Christians?) of the more liberal sort. They think Jesus wrote the Gospels and don't know whether Paul or Moses fit in the NT or OT, respectively. But there's a problem with the survey which, I argue, is skewing its results. The survey asked respondents to describe the Bible, but it provided its own...
Married, Hitched, Plunged
I am married. I have gotten hitched. I have taken the plunge. It was well worth it. I wish I had done this long ago. Laura is the best wife I could ever have hoped for, far better than I knew—and I aim to find out more. I wanted greater holiness for myself out of this marriage, and I feel I got it in the first minute. It's been growing since. Praying and reading the Bible with Laura are deeply pure and enjoyable. Even communion at church on Sunday night was especially rich. Laura said the...