There is little doubt from the record of history that God heard the prayers of Sutcliff, Fuller, and their fellow Baptists. As they prayed, the Calvinistic Baptists in England began to experience the blessing of revival, though, it should be noted, great change was not immediately evident.   In the last post on the revitalization of the... Continue Reading

González surveys the way Christians, from the first to the 21st century, have treated Sunday. He shows when the concept of rest developed in church history, and how the West has both embraced and rejected the church’s Sunday liturgy.   For anyone who likes church history, Justo González is a familiar name. His two-volume work, The Story... Continue Reading

I think this distinction is helpful because the basic meaning of fearing the Lord that we read about in Deuteronomy is also in the Wisdom Literature, where we’re told that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The focus here is on a sense of awe and respect for the majesty of... Continue Reading

We delude ourselves into believing that our anger is righteous, that it is just the same as God’s white-hot anger against all that is evil. Sometimes it is, perhaps, but far more often it is not. It may be a sinful reaction to justified anger or a sinful reaction to unjustified anger. Either way, what... Continue Reading

In Moral Combat, R. Marie Griffith, director of the John C. Danforth Center for Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, reviews a century’s worth of American cultural conflict over sexuality, fueled by a growing divide between religious subcultures. Her account is subtly biased, but readers will benefit from her clear presentation of the... Continue Reading

Pio Nono would not even consider giving up Edgardo to his parents (despite all sorts of circumstances that suggested the servant girl had made up the story of the boy’s illness and baptism). With papal rule crumbling and Pius’ political allies unwilling to prop up the papacy one more time, the pope made Edgardo a... Continue Reading

Non-profits have typically been ineligible from receiving FEMA funds if the damaged facilities were established or used primarily for religious services, religious education, or religious activities, such as “worship, proselytizing, religious instruction, or fundraising activities that benefit a religious institution and not the community at large.”   The Story: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recently... Continue Reading

As pro-life sidewalk counselors call out through the black screening that interlaces the fence, encouraging pregnant women to protect their babies, the escorts try to drown them out with boom boxes. “They don’t want the ladies to hear us,” explains Statham. “They try to put up as much resistance as they can.”   JACKSON, Miss.—The... Continue Reading

In the span of a lifetime, divorce has gone from being highly taboo to more American than apple pie; from the inspiration for a decade of angsty grunge anthems to introducing terms like “conscious uncoupling” and “divorce-moons” into our break-up lexicon. Today, we’re witnessing the rise of the “happy divorce.”   In his review of... Continue Reading

When men do work and take care – when they clean their room, or lay down their life for someone else – it is such a pure reflection of what they were created to do, and so powerfully good for them and those around them, that it provokes an emotional response. It is a beautiful thing, and... Continue Reading