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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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Falling stars

It’s one of those things everyone knows: The Bible talks a lot about falling stars. It turns out it’s one of those things that everyone knows but is wrong. There’s a single fallen star in Isaiah 14:12. Stars lose their brightness in various places (Ezekiel 32:7; Joel 2:109; 3:15). But…

August 14, 2014

Artist-Prophet

As the title suggests, Miles Unger’s Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces tells the life story of Michelangelo through six of his great works, including his Pieta , the David statue, the Sistine chapel. As masterful as those works were, and as much as the impressed themselves on the future…

August 13, 2014

Society of Jesus

J ohn O’Malley’s The Jesuits tells the complex story of the author’s order in a brief 160 pages. The small space lends focus, and O’Malley highlights the innovations and contributions of the Society of Jesus. Ignatius’s decision to focus on education for lay students gave the Jesuits a profile unlike…

August 13, 2014
Trinity

Social Trinitarian Pushback

Social trinitarianism has been on its heels in recent years, but in a bracing article in IJST , Gijsbert van den Brink of the Free University of Amsterdam thinks it can respond to the varied criticisms. It needs to be chastened and modified at points, but for van den Brink…

August 13, 2014

Bashing Augustine Bashers

Jenson gives a wonderfully curmudgeonly riposte to the critics of critics of Augustine ( The Theology of Colin Gunton , 11-12). “Whether long books or short articles, all display the same pattern: ‘But just look at these other things that Augustine said about God’s triunity . . . and aknowledge…

August 13, 2014

Was Noah Good?

Genesis 6:8 says that Noah “found favor in the eyes of Yahweh.” In the following verse, we’re told that Noah was a righteous man ( tzadiyq ), blameless in his generations,” and this assessment is reiterated in 7:1, which records Yahweh’s statement, “you alone I have seen to be righteous…

August 13, 2014

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