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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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Poetry

Poetry and Metaphysics

In a 1950 article on “Agrarianism in Exile,” Richard Weaver pointed out that the Southern Agrarians did not begin their careers are publicists or partisans, but as poets: “The served the music of poetry” (589). This is revealing: “It tells us a great deal about a man to know that…

April 5, 2016

The Triumph and Failure of Marx

In the translator's introduction to Augusto Del Noce's Crisis of Modernity , Carlo Lancelotti outlines Del Noce's theory about the “heterogenesis of ends” in Marxism, its simultaneous failure and success. Originally attracted to a synthesis of Christianity and Marx, Del Noce hesitated because of his moral objections to Marxism's justification…

April 5, 2016

Wedding Homily

Every wedding is a liturgy. Note, I didn’t say: Every wedding has a liturgy. Or, Weddings tend to take liturgical form . Rather: Every wedding is a liturgy. Not only weddings like this one, with formal dress, dignified processions, pre-scripted words and prayers, gorgeous music, dialogue between minister and people.…

April 4, 2016

Foreknowledge and Freedom

In The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge , Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski outlines a variety of solutions to the dilemma of the title - how God's omniscience, which includes omniscience regarding the future, is compatible with human freedom. Is it possible to account for God's foreknowledge in such a way that…

April 4, 2016

Monotheism in Athens

Paul's apologetic sermon in Acts 17 is often taken as a model of apostolic accommodation. He quotes “one of your own poets,” speaks of “divine nature,” introduces the Athenians to a God they already vaguely know. His sermon is not so much news as an elaboration of what the Athenians…

April 4, 2016

Tribes of the Transjordan

When Israel conquered and settled in Canaan, two and a half tribes settled on the eastern side of the Jordan, in “transJordanian” territory - Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh, the son of Joseph. The Chronicler treats these three tribes as a complex unit in 1 Chronicles…

April 1, 2016

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