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What is the Gospel? More Than You Might Think
That seems like a simple question. Every Christian knows what the gospel is, right? Jesus died for our sins, we believe it and are saved. As Paul says in Romans 10: 9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from...
He Came to His Own, and His Own Received Him Not: Jesus, the Religious Professionals, and AD 70
One thing many Christians seem to miss is that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, that he came first exclusively to his own people. There is a tendency to see all of Jesus’ words as written to us and universally applicable, and ignoring the historical context in which the...
Tim Allen, the Hollowness of Philosophy, and the Consideration of the Alternative
The great comedian Tim Allen, Buzz Lightyear himself, sat down with fellow comedian Bill Maher for a long conversation about their careers, and at one point discussed the credibility of Christianity. Maher’s at best an agnostic, but Allen clearly believes in God, and...
Articles on Theology
The Dominion Mandate for Today
For most of my Christian life the Dominion Mandate was not something I gave any serious thought to. For me what counted was what some call the Cultural Mandate. From early in my Christian life, I always thought we should bring our Christian worldview and thinking to...
The Miracles of Jesus and their Meaning
I was inspired to write this post because of an unpleasant Twitter interlocutor who claimed to know things about me from one sentence I wrote in a comment: “Jesus’ healing ministry was a metaphor for spiritual reality.” He came back in so many words with, why do you...
Christian Children Are Not Strangers to the Covenant
In this life the debate between Baptists and paedobaptists, or baptizing babies, will never end, and this post doesn’t seek to do the impossible. My powers of persuasion are not that great, nor is my knowledge. It is written, rather, for those who are open to trying...
Articles on Explanatory Power
The Bee Nails It: ‘Why Do Good Things Happen At All?’ Asks Atheist Struggling With His Faith
If I had to play a one-note Samba in apologetics it would be the consideration of the Alternative. In my last post I mentioned a Christian who advertised his "deconversion" on Facebook, and suggested he might want to put his new alternative faith...
Have You Ever Tried to Kill a Fly?
I'm not sure there is anything more annoying then a pesky fly, other than maybe a pesky mosquito. Recently one of those pesky flies somehow made its way into my office, and didn't want to leave. Eventually, swatting it withy my hand wasn't going to dissuade it from...
McCartney 3, 2, 1: Only God Can Explain Music!
I recently learned of an interview legendary producer Rick Ruben did with one of the two remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney, called McCartney 3, 2, 1.
Articles on Culture
This is Us, Alzheimer’s and the Programming of Modern Medicine
My wife and I recently watched a TV series called This is Us, and one of the main characters came down with Alzheimer's. Given I’ve had a health epiphany because of Covid, I now see portrayals of disease like this differently than I used to. This Is Us was a series...
We Went from Negative to Positive World in One Day!
For those not familiar with the phrase “negative world,” it comes from Aaron Renn who wrote a piece for First Things in early 2022 titled, “The Three Worlds of Evangelism.” He lays out his assessment of where American culture was at the time: As I laid out back in...
Pietistic Gnostic Dualism’s Influence on Modern Christianity
In a couple previous posts I wrote about what it means that the Christian’s citizenship in is heaven, and what it does not mean, and how the understanding of our spiritual home developed in the history of Pietism. This happened, along with the predictable consequences...
Articles on Apologetics
Death as a Key to the Meaning of Life
I’m not a real big fan of this whole mortality thing. Apparently nobody else isn’t either given death is the ever present reality most people do everything they can to ignore. Death is like the FBI knocking on your door in the middle of the night and responding, “I...
Nietzsche and Why It’s OK to Eat Your Neighbor
I bet you never thought cannibalism and Nietzsche would go together, but they do, quite nicely. I might never have put those two together, but I heard Gary DeMar discuss his book, Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor, on his podcast. This subtitle gives us the...
Rebuilding Christendom and the Consideration of the Alternative
As we slowly, but I trust surely, rebuild Christendom, i.e., push back and defeat secularism, Christians and the church in general need to rebuild the Christian plausibility structures of Western society. I recently wrote about the role Jordan Peterson is playing in...
Articles on Parenting and Family
Most Christians Don’t Believe in Postmillennialism, But the Left Does
In January I was listening to Steve Deace opine on the woman in Minnesota who was trying to block ICE agents on a suburban street. At one point it looked like she was trying to run over one of the agents, and he shot her. She died giving her life for the leftist...
That Old Rugged Cross and Our Home Far Away
Recently at a church service the closing hymn was That Old Rugged Cross, for over a hundred years a beloved hymn to conservative Protestants. It had been a long while since I’d sung it, and I noticed the final stanza got the ultimate hope of our faith backwards,...
What Distinguishes Amillennialism from Postmillennialism?
While I very much appreciate my optimistic amillennialist brethren, or what I call practical postmillennialists, it’s important to understand that being optimistic, or not, is not what separates these two eschatological perspectives. It’s more than merely seeing the...