The Good Life and Lena Dunham
Richard Mouw* makes an interesting comment in his book on common grace: perhaps the only way to really know how well a moral theology does is to see it worked out in a group: We can fully understand the claims of a theological perspective only if we attempt to see what it would look like if those claims were fleshed out in the life of a community. (74) The proof of the pudding is in the eating, in other words. Are Christian lives happier than secular lives? Of course, a utilitarian metric...
Gordon College May Lose Accreditation Over Opposition to Homosexuality
I am not an alarmist, but this is really serious: Gordon College may lose its accreditation over its opposition to homosexuality. Carl Trueman was so right six years ago. I'll put up his money quote on the blog again: What is becoming increasingly clear is that the day is probably not far off when those who regard homosexual practice as wrong will be consistently presented as the moral, cultural and intellectual equivalents of white supremacists. Al Mohler...has pointed out that this issue is...
Review: To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davison Hunter My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book will need to gestate for a while. There's no way I can write a review at the moment. I can only offer initial impressions as to its value: I simply found his analysis of major Christian ways to view culture more intuitive—and more immediately helpful—than Niebuhr or even Carson. If I were you, I'd actually read the last chapter first, then...
Review: A More Sure Word: Which Bible Can You Trust?
A More Sure Word: Which Bible Can You Trust? by R.B. Ouellette My rating: 1 of 5 stars A Sincere Thanks I believe R.B. Ouellette made a sincere effort to write with a gracious spirit; and from what I can tell about the publisher and editors of this book (West Coast Baptist College and Paul Chappell), that gracious spirit shouldn’t be a surprise. Ouellette writes, I want to have charity and grace enough to state that someone who disagrees with the position of this book could still be a biblical...
Pure Pleasure in Being Praised
I have small children, and I think of this all the time: No one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse. . . . I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my...