Futile-Care Theory (FCT) empowers strangers to make medicine’s most important and intimate health-care decisions. Deciding whether to accept or reject life-sustaining care is one of the most difficult medical choices. Under FCT, a patient’s decision—whether it be the desire of an infant patient’s guardians or written in an adult patient’s advance directive—matters less than institutional and professional... Continue Reading

“This book rests on one fundamental presupposition: if you want something to flourish, you need to use it in accordance with its nature.  Don’t plant tomatoes in a dark closet and water them with soda and expect to have vibrant tomato plants.  To do so would be to act contrary to the nature of tomatoes.  Similarly,... Continue Reading

The baptism itself was anticlimactic. Perhaps it had to be. I was too distracted by my wet shirt and too worried about my daughter’s tears to be present in the moment. And then there’s the fact that, for at least twenty years since my teenage conversion experience, I’d been imagining the day when I’d be... Continue Reading

Left to my own drive and motivation I would have sidelined my Bible study for a better time later in the day, or I would have sat out whole semesters of women’s ministry because it wasn’t a good season, or I would have stayed home from church because I just wasn’t up to it.  But... Continue Reading

This view was part of his persuasion on Christian liberty – the conviction that, in matters which are not mentioned in the Bible, men can act according to their own personal conscience and in wisdom. To Calvin, this liberty was “a matter of primary necessity, one without the knowledge of which the conscience can scarcely... Continue Reading

In one era, the doctrine of sin is unacceptable; in another, it’s miracles; in another, it’s the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement, or biblical sex ethics. But the theme is the same: In order to make Christianity believable, certain doctrines must be abandoned.   For centuries, liberal theologians have believed it their task to make Christianity palatable... Continue Reading

Every NAPARC congregation consists of sinners. Consider, however, the rhetoric used by the podcasters: “gender apartheid” and “toxic masculinity.” These are very strong words. The dictionary (ibid) defines the noun apartheid thus: “(in South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.” It now includes “segregation on grounds other than... Continue Reading

Charlie’s parents sought to bring him to the United States for experimental treatment, but several European courts have blocked their decision and sided with doctors who say that switching to palliative end-of-life care is in the best interest of the child.   What just happened? The case of Charlie Gard, a terminally ill infant in... Continue Reading

We like to imagine ourselves as enlightened, rational, truth-seeking knowers — “thinking things,” as Descartes put it. But in fact, the engine that drives us under the hood of our conscious awareness is our loves. You aren’t defined by what you know. You are what you love.   Where do you want to go today?... Continue Reading

Given this rash of “fake news,” I thought it might be interesting to observe that an analogous phenomenon can be seen in the study of early Christianity.  There is quite a bit of “fake news” out there regarding the person of Jesus, the origins of the church, or the development of the Bible.  Even though... Continue Reading