Jason Riley: The RealClearReligion Interview
Riley argues that bad public policies have contributed to the breakdown of the black family
One of the messages in this book is that blacks ultimately have to help themselves. There may be some residual racism out there, but that is not what is producing the unemployment rates. That is not what is producing the achievement gap in schools. That is not what is producing the black arrest and incarceration... Continue Reading
Why Do So Many Liberals Despise Christianity?
Liberals increasingly want to enforce a comprehensive, uniformly secular vision of the human good. And they see alternative visions of the good as increasingly intolerable.
What happened to a liberalism of skepticism, modesty, humility, and openness to conflicting notions of the highest good? What happened to a liberalism of pluralism that recognizes that when people are allowed to search for truth in freedom, they are liable to seek and find it in a multitude of values, beliefs, and traditions? What... Continue Reading
Reader’s Block
The importance of reading the Word aloud
In all of the discussions I have read on worship, I have not come across any real discussion outside of Block’s book of the aesthetics of reading out loud. Given the fact that Protestantism – in fact, biblical Christianity – is a religion of the Word spoken, we need to give more attention not only... Continue Reading
The Authority, Sufficiency, Finality of Scripture
How we understand Scripture as our canon—our rule of faith and life—has very practical repercussions
Instead of narrowing and confining life, biblical wisdom makes us strong and stable. Plus, unlike immediate guidance that bypasses Scripture completely, the patient study of God’s written revelation gradually transforms our patterns of thinking and moulds our character. As we will see, it is in order to transform us by the renewing of our minds... Continue Reading
How Same-Sex Marriage Will Affect Friendships
The space for deep and meaningful male-male or female-female friendships among the young is rapidly shrinking to the vanishing point.
Unfortunately, the sexual revolution has made it more difficult to imagine passionate philos apart from eros. That’s why revisionist historians read romantic notions into Teddy Roosevelt’s affectionate letters to his closest friends. People wonder out loud about Abraham Lincoln’s sharing a bed with his friend, Joshua Speed. It’s hard for our society to understand how... Continue Reading
Sometimes Nebraska Is Just Too Nice
When infused with political correctness, niceness can get out of hand.
Who died and gave Irving Middle School or Superintendent Joel the authority to impose this philosophy (epistemology) on children and families? I suppose that most of the parents who send their children to Irving or to any other LPS school believe that sexual identity is not just a preference or a choice and that, in... Continue Reading
7 Ways I Get My Kids to Listen Carefully During Scripture Reading
The way you feel about the Scriptures will be the way your children learn to feel about them too.
Children are very perceptive and can tell if you’re just teaching or reading to them out of duty. They can tell if you’re bored with what you’re reading, or if you are absolutely gripped by it. You may need to ask the Lord to help you to be transfixed by the passage you are reading... Continue Reading
Let Your Dim, Sin-Stained Light Shine Before The World
If exhortations to “be an example” have ever fallen on your shoulders with the weight of the world, take heart. There’s a way out from under the burden.
The gospel is not simply the best self-help news out there, nor the hottest parenting or marriage techniques to transform your kids and your communication. It is the message that God, through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ, has made a way for sinners to be forgiven and transformed. We have been and are... Continue Reading
Faith, Freedom and Higher Education
The attempt to exclude the ideas of exclusivist Christianity on secular campuses suggests that such ideas are also unacceptable in the secularist society that is being constructed.
There is thus ultimately a “battle of wills” in the contemporary Western world. The America of classical liberalism understood that consensus should be based on a moral force guiding decisions. The attempt to force a change in conscience violates a free society, and the “all comers” policies now being implemented at secular educational institutions basically... Continue Reading
Learning to Pastor
So many ways in which my ministry has changed over the years, and I wish I knew when I started
As a younger pastor, I tried to do everything. Part of that was due to serving in smaller churches where less of us were available to do more. Part of that, however, was due to my own superman complex. Like a lot of us in ministry, there have been times when I self-medicated through ministry.... Continue Reading