What evangelicals need most today is actual moral reasoning, one that recognizes complexity; clear distinctions; clarified principles; competing goods; the penultimate and ultimate ends of the civil, ecclesiastical, and domestic societies; a multiplicity of responsibilities and duties; and prudence.    Reacting to the unprecedented degree of rancor and acrimony in American evangelicalism today, many evangelicals have called for... Continue Reading

What historian Phil Magness has discovered, with newly unearthed emails, comes not as a shock to any of us but it is satisfying to see the confirmation of what we suspected. It seemed at the time that the effort to attack and destroy both the GBD [Great Barrington Declaration] and its authors was coordinated from the... Continue Reading

It must not surprise us when wicked men act like wicked men. It also cannot be something that bothers us, for they will get what is coming. We can rest assured of that. We should also give thanks for the Lord’s mercy that we have not gone likewise.   Good Morning!  In family worship last... Continue Reading

Conservatives wish to conserve traditional institutions, so unless an organization or publication is avowedly conservative it will inevitably drift Leftward.   In April of 2001 I began my monthly Skeptic column at Scientific American, the longest continuously published magazine in the country dating back to 1845. With Stephen Jay Gould as my role model (and... Continue Reading

The overall testimony of Scripture is that the gift of tongues refers to known languages that were unknown to the one speaking them. There is only one gift of tongues presented in the Bible, with nuanced purposes. It is always intended for public use and to be a sign to unbelievers.   “This book will... Continue Reading

To know the actual economic history of enrichment and civilization, you have to know the numbers. Most people don’t. People got rich and civilized by liberty, not by coercion.   Let’s be clear ethically. Imperi­alism, as in South Asia, was very bad. Enslaving people, as in West Africa, was too. So was shooting striking workers,... Continue Reading

The pastor to whom I had confessed my sin years earlier has walked with us through many rough times; I am grateful that he is still my pastor today. He loved me, and he showed up as the hands and feet of Christ when I did not think myself worthy of God’s love.   “Godly... Continue Reading

The moral tastes of popular culture are just that: tastes, and thus subject to fashion and, in our social media age, to easy manipulation. Society has no solid foundation on which to build its moral codes.    Years ago, when teaching at seminary, I used to tell the students that moral relevance in the modern... Continue Reading

Prayer brings God down into our life. It was when Jesus was praying, that He was transfigured. True prayer always transfigures! One who lives habitually with Christ, becomes like Christ.    In the Christian’s devotional life, prayer has an essential place. The godly men of the Bible were all men of prayer. Jesus, who showed... Continue Reading

Elite and powerful people have conspired to sever our society and culture from its religious moorings—from God and the transcendent moral framework that flows from his nature and is revealed both in nature and Scripture.   You shall have no other gods before Me. (Exodus 20:3) The first commandment is absolutely foundational, utterly basic, to... Continue Reading