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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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Eucharistic Sacrifice

Luther-style: “I also want to concede that they [ministers, priests] may perform these sacrifices of thanksgiving for others, just as I can also thank God apart from the mass, for Christ and all his saints, yes, for all creatures. Therefore, the priest may think thus in his heart: “Behold, dear…

December 27, 2012

Chalcedon’s Leftovers

In his contribution to The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther (Cambridge Companions to Religion) (p. 274) , Robert Jenson remarks on the unfinished business of the Council of Chalcedon: “It is an agreed foundation for all Christian theology: as ‘one and the same’ identifiable person, Christ is both ‘one of…

December 27, 2012

Doubly Decentered

For Luther, the believer has a doubly de-centered existence. “He who trusts in Christ exists in Christ; he is one with Christ, having the same righteousness as He.” But the believer who lives by faith outside himself in Christ also lives by love outside himself in his neighbor: “a Christian…

December 27, 2012

Through a Needle’s Eye

My review of Peter Brown’s latest book is up at the Christianity Today site this morning.

December 27, 2012

Holy Things for Holy

In the Old Testament, certain interior spaces were holy because God dwelt in those spaces, consecrating them by His glory (Exodus 29). The objects that were placed in those spaces were consecrated, mostly by oil, to take their place in the presence of God. Things were holy when made fit…

December 26, 2012

Global Religious Landscape

At the Washington Post site, Max Fisher reports on some of the results of a new Pew Forum report on the global religious landscape . Fisher highlights the study’s findings about the reach of Christianity. It is, shall we say, encouraging for Christians. First in sheer numbers: “Christians are by…

December 26, 2012

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