Review: Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel My rating: 5 of 5 stars I find it incredibly refreshing to find any writer who sees through the tempting veneer secularism has laid not just on our politics but on our lives. It's a tempting veneer, because it is very hard—impossible, intractable—to find agreement with those whose "vision of the good life," whose ways of valuing things, are different from one's own. But those differences must be solved: either we're going...
Two Pieces of Podcast News
I recently talked to Isaac Dagneau of Back to the Bible Canada's InDoubt podcast about English Bible Translations. Give a listen! I'd like to ask something I never have: would some of you, blog audience, be willing to pray just once for me as I go on another podcast this week? I'll be on John McWhorter's Lexicon Valley Friday morning (release date is later) to talk about my new book, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. John is a hero of mine, the best popularizer I know in...
Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism and Recent Trinitarian Controversies
Just a short reflection on the argument among Reformed theologians about theology proper (read, for example, Frame’s review of James Dolezal here and here). I think some of my brothers and sisters in Christ are looking to confessions and scholastic categories and other elements of reasonably-stable-and-long-term-but-not-overtly-Catholic church tradition for a way out of the interminable theological disputes going on around and among us. But these disputes are our lot under the sun, because...
I’ve Got an Article in a New Book
The new Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia has an article in it from yours truly, namely “Love.” A few friends have credits, too, including (but not limited to) Joe Tyrpak on David Brainerd (he wrote his DMin dissertation on Brainerd); Ryan Martin; and Nathan Lentfer. I counted at least six graduates of my alma mater among the contributors. Congratulations to them. Where I've dipped in, the articles have been solid, and the editors are Edwards superstars. Neele and Minkema are associated with the...
A Run-Down of Christian Resources on Homosexuality and Same-Sex Attraction
A friend is doing some study on same-sex attraction and asked me if I had any resource recommendations. Here's my reply. Here are a few things to look at: Phil Brown’s recent paper on homosexual desire. I haven’t yet read it, but I’ve been thinking that this is the issue of the moment: is homosexual desire itself sinful? Evangelicals are accustomed to saying that to be tempted is not a sin. But when it comes to homosexuality and pedophilia I think we sense that that formulation needs to be...