Review: Reverting to Type: a Reader’s Story
Reverting to Type: a Reader's Story by Alan Jacobs My rating: 4 of 5 stars I just really like Jacobs, and I read most of what he writes in print and online. I found it really enjoyable while rocking my newborn in the wee hours to hear Jacobs provide an autobiographical addendum to his great little book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. He justifies reading-for-pleasure-based-on-your-current-whim via his own interesting story. A characteristic quote: In many respects, going...
Review: The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief
The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief by George M. Marsden My rating: 4 of 5 stars Perceptive, readable, fascinating. What really stuck out to me was that the intellectuals of the 1950s were facing the same dissolution of moral discourse that I believe we are facing in our generation—and for the same reasons. We're just further along the path of dissolution. Those who sounded the alarm in the 1950s (specifically Walter Lippmann) were pooh-poohed...
A Really Great Post on What Evangelicals Give Up When They Give Up Genesis 1-11
My good friend Brian Collins has written a really great post you have to read at the BJU School of Religion blog—which you have to subscribe to. Brian presents some important exegetical evidence for the young earth creation position: The suffering of the non-human world is described as a condition of bondage, groaning, and pain as a result of sin (Rom. 8:20; Gen. 3:17-19). The earth awaits redemption (Rom. 8:23), and included in that redemption is the end of animal suffering and pain (Isa....
The Death of the Secular Order
#150184538 / gettyimages.com Christian sociologist Kevin Flatt: The secular order is a way of structuring culture and society based on the functional assumption that the cosmos is inherently meaningless, devoid of any higher power or ordering principle, and so it furnishes us with no norms for human behaviour. This lack of "given" meaning leaves us with the freedom, or burden, to create our own values as individuals. Under such an order, social arrangements cannot be justified by an appeal to...
The Grand Narrative of Liberalism
Below is a one-paragraph summary of the grand narrative of liberal progressives, written by then-evangelical sociologist Christian Smith (in this book). Despite Smith's credentials and acumen, you don't necessarily expect evangelical sociologists to be fair—even when they're trying to be—when they distill the essence of the mission of their enemies. So what's interesting to me is that this paragraph was quoted in its entirety and with evident approval by secular moral philosopher Jonathan...