Every society, however, is built on and around ideas, many of which are so deeply ingrained, either by history or religion or both, that they go unspoken. Changing them is not impossible, but it is also not easy. How did things in Afghanistan change so dramatically, seemingly overnight? How did a decades-long, frustrating stalemate become... Continue Reading

The [Westminster] Divines confessed that inward images are forbidden: they are the root of the external images that are obviously forbidden. The rejection of internal images is a good and necessary consequence of the rejection of external images. The god we fashion in our hearts and minds are just as idolatrous as icons of the... Continue Reading

To keep the sabbath, or the Lord’s Day, will require that we fence some things, and decide that we don’t do this or that on the day of rest. This is why wise societies often have Sunday trading laws, for instance. But, even saying that, for Christians the Sabbath is not a law but an... Continue Reading

Do not let the world around you move you off of the unshakable promises that God has made to his church. Pray for the next generation. Pray that God would convert our children.   Several months ago the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus provoked the ire of many with their controversial song, “We’ll Convert Your Children.” You... Continue Reading

The slavery of colonial and antebellum America was tragic but there is nothing we can do to change that history. The present is a different matter. That is our responsibility. No amount of indignant finger-pointing at the world of three hundred years ago will cleanse us of our present-day complicity.   Winston Churchill famously quipped... Continue Reading

Reductionism is killing us because it’s killing our conversations. It’s killing open, receptive dialogue. It’s polarizing the nation, even the world. For our part, we have to start identifying and assaulting reductionism whenever it crops up in our conversations.   I hate conflict. And it’s not just a hatred that festers into frustration; it has... Continue Reading

Let us pursue this grand and glorious gift of friendship that the Lord gives us. Let us rejoice in our friendship with the King of kings. C.S. Lewis says it well, “Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a fire?”    The King’s Speech won the 2010 Academy Award... Continue Reading

The exodus of Israel from Egypt is to remind us of the anti-typical exodus that Jesus has already accomplished through His death and resurrection. What all mankind needs more than anything is to experience the true exodus from Satan, sin, and death.   The exodus is the great redemptive act of the Old Testament. There... Continue Reading

The great need of the hour is collective humility and repentance for our sins, for our selfishness, for our idolatries, and our attempts to make our home in this world in denial of our heavenly citizenship.    One of the most important things Christians should talk about right now is repentance. With the plethora of... Continue Reading

To keep the Sabbath—the very aim of creation—is to understand that you are part of a complicated pattern of time, of bringing order to chaos, and knowing that you are a creature rather than the Creator. We keep weekly the day of stopping, of not-creating, so that we learn these truths from the world around... Continue Reading