Early in my Christian life I was struck by a fascinating quote in C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letter #21. On the sin of peevishness, he wrote, Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And […]
Religion
What Christian Reconstruction Gave Me
As everyone who investigates me online knows, in my 30s I was a Christian Reconstructionist. Part of the appeal of that to younger people in that era was the specific blueprints for society and personal action that seemed to fill […]
The Theonomization of Anabaptism
At the time of the Reformation, certain groups emerged which said that one ought to be baptized again [despite one’s infant baptism] when one came to conscious faith in Christ. Therefore, they were called Anabaptists, which means ‘again-baptizers’. But they […]
A Letter about ‘Freedom’ and Christianity
I have wrestled with the tensions between Christianity and ‘freedom’; and they have been a major part of my thinking, at times even an obsession. So I think it’s time that I told my whole story and thinking about this […]
Time to Stop Using Political Terminology for Theological and Moral Views
Some portions of the American church, it is asserted, have gotten much more politicized in recent years. It is at the point where many want to ditch the word ‘evangelical’, because ‘evangelical’ is seen by the public as a political […]
Drawing Lines: The Fences of the Church
The modern Church tries to be open to as many as possible, in order that as many as possible might hear the Gospel. Jim Belcher has written about a model of the Church not as a fenced enclosure but as a […]
Did the New Testament Prophesy Islam?
Muslims sometimes claim that the coming of Muhammad is prophesied in John 14 under the name of the Helper. I doubt this; there is not a lot of similarity between the actual work of Muhammad and how the Helper is […]
Did Jesus Give Us Our Individualism?
Patrick Deneen has warned that modern ‘liberalism’, which includes American style conservatism, has stressed the individual and dominion over nature so much as to weaken community. In trying to liberate the individual, the state, and for conservatives the market, expand to protect […]
‘Faith’ vs ‘Relationship’
Christians have traditionally spoken of ‘faith’ as the means of taking hold of the salvation of Christ. Roman Catholics have tended to speak of ‘faith plus works combined’, but at their best they don’t regard salvation as a matter of […]
Jesus Did Not Teach Universal ‘Acceptance, Tolerance, and Inclusion’
We are often told today that Jesus taught radical ‘acceptance, tolerance, and inclusion’. Well, he did open the door to many the Pharisees thought beyond hope, and on the other hand he excluded many of the Pharisees themselves. Let’s start with […]