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American Politics

Voting, Praying, and Purity: Two Different Versions of Civil Religion

Pastor John Piper has written on why he (probably) won’t be voting in this month’s presidential election. Reading his argument, I couldn’t help wondering if voting has a cultic significance to Piper. As much as self-admitted Christian Trump-voters are characterized as cult followers, Never Trump Christians often strike me as…

by Mark HorneOctober 30, 2020
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Literature

Pastor Frankenstein

Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself… –– Victor Frankenstein In Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Victor Frankenstein is a young intellectual with an excessive thirst for glory and worldwide acclaim. Having lost his beloved mother, Frankenstein works to…

by Drew KnowlesOctober 27, 2020
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How to Worship

Against Practical Preaching

“Our daughter is just like a baby hippo,” my wife says to me as I hang my coat up. “After we watched a video of hippos munching whole watermelons, she sat down to her own watermelon lunch. She gobbled them up with those same puffy cheeks and big eyes.” My…

by John HigginsOctober 22, 2020
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Abortion

Evangelicals for Adolf: Christians in Hitler’s Germany

Christian compromise with Nazi Germany’s political leadership is well documented in painful detail. There was resistance, but it was the exception rather than the rule. German Christianity was terribly timid. Leadership lacked spiritual strength because of serious Biblical ignorance and unbelief. But it was not just the leaders. Christians in…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 20, 2020
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Abortion

For Whom Should a Christian Vote: Moral Reasoning and the 2020 Election

Can a Christian vote for Donald Trump? That might seem like a surprising question given the widespread evangelical support for the President. Yet for a growing number of evangelicals, to vote for Trump is to endorse his moral repugnancy and further discredit gospel-believing Christians who have sold their birthright for…

by Blake JohnsonOctober 13, 2020
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Hermeneutics

Two Yeshuas and a Fish

Thirty-eight years is a long time to take getting somewhere (Deut. 2:14). You could just ask anyone in the unfaithful generation of people whom God brought to the edge of the Promised Land the first time under Moses—if they were still alive, that is (Num. 14:22-23, 32-35). But there are…

by Eric RobinsonOctober 6, 2020

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The Warrior and the City

Revelation 19:6-9 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to…

August 3, 2015

Justice by Faith

Eugene Boring reviews Herman Waetjen's Letter to the Romans in the Review of Biblical Literature (July 2015). According to Boring, Waetjen sets Paul's gospel in the context of a biblical story stretching back to Adam and including the promise to Abraham: “Adam (= humanity) was created in God’s image and…

August 3, 2015

In the City

In John's final vision (Revelation 21:9-22:5), new Jerusalem descends from heaven as a bride. Her jasper walls sparkle, the city itself is transparent gold, the foundation stones are precious gems. She is, in sum, a rich city. Within Jerusalem, there is constant light. The glory of the nations comes into…

July 31, 2015

Immigration and Statism

During the gold rush of 1848, Chinese immigrants began to move into the United States in large numbers, especially in California. Between 1850 and 1882, a quarter-million immigrated, many of them working on railroads and mines, in dangerous working conditions, with little pay and few tools. During the 1860s and…

July 31, 2015

A Nation of (Some) Immigrants

Aristide Zolberg argues that the US isn't a nation of immigrants so much as a Nation By Design . President Kennedy to the contrary: Not a nation of immigrants but a nation of some immigrants. American immigration is not a story of laissez-faire yielding to restrictionism. Openness and restriction have…

July 31, 2015

Rolling Back Reconstruction

During the debates over the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), Western mounted arguments to appeal their Southern colleagues. Southerners in their turn employed the Western arguments against Chinese rights to limit the rights of Southern African Americans. Cozy bedfellows in racial politics. According to Andrew Gyory's study of the Chinese act…

July 31, 2015

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