Sabbath Rest and the Moral Limits of Consumption
The incremental steps that have increasingly threatened the moral limits of consumer activity
The responsibility of moral consumption becomes all the more salient when we realize that markets are good at delivering what people want. As the economist Paul Heyne observed, this efficiency of the market “is no reason to cripple it. It is reason, however, to think more carefully about what we want.” The market will make... Continue Reading
Review: ‘True Word for Tough Times’
Preaching a prophet for present day edification
“True Word for Tough Times” is almost a survey of the 52 chapters of Jeremiah. The first chapter tackles Jeremiah 1 and the “Astounding Word.” The next takes up Jeremiah 15.10-21, answering the question “Can this prophet be saved?” Then comes material on Jeremiah 27-29, where Davis shows that “The yoke is no joke.” Afterwards... Continue Reading
Preacher, Be Realistic
John Witherspoon warns young preachers about exaggerating their exhortations to others
He warns that we should not make virtue so high that no one can attain it and vice so dastardly that no one feels in danger of it…. Similarly, Witherspoon warns against being too slow to sympathize with sufferers and too quick to point them to heroic fortitude. Toward the end of his Lectures on... Continue Reading
Not Annie the Musical
The little-discussed side of adoption is the crisis some families face with traumatized children
Abbie was violent and had fits that went on for hours, tantrums on steroids. Jennie points to recent research about trauma that children experience in the womb as an explanation for why Abbie struggled. Abbie has been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, along the lines of post-traumatic stress disorder for children. Before Abbie, Jennie said... Continue Reading
The Paradox of Diverse Communities
Studies show bridges between communities are more effective than focusing on the diversity level of those communities.
Their simulations of more than 20 million virtual “neighborhoods” demonstrate a troubling paradox: that community and diversity may be fundamentally incompatible goals. As the authors explain, integration “provides opportunities for intergroup contact that are necessary to promote respect for diversity, but may prevent the formation of dense interpersonal networks that are necessary to promote sense... Continue Reading
What Is Inerrancy and Why Do We Need the Word?
Packer and Frame explain the issue and its importance.
They are frightened of certain mental attitudes and stances with which they feel the word inerrancy is now inseparably linked and which in their view tend to obscure the Bible’s main message and bar the way to the best in biblical scholarship. In Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life, J. I.... Continue Reading
Beyond the Bucket List
We are to make it our ambition to be unambitious.
But we don’t hear too often of anyone aspiring to anonymity. Yet that’s the direction in which the Apostle Paul pushes us when he says in 1 Thessalonians “to aspire to live quietly” (4:11). Literally, what he says is that we are to make it our ambition to be unambitious. What are your aspirations... Continue Reading
Brookdale Chooses Path of Disaffiliation to Join EPC
Missouri church seeks to leave PC (USA) for EPC
The issues that brought about Brookdale’s decision to leave the denomination revolved around the PCUSA’s reluctance to proclaim the Bible as the Word of God and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. A Missouri congregation has disaffiliated from the Presbyterian Church (USA), though it is unclear whether there could be legal repercussions from the... Continue Reading
Tough Future for Evangelicals, Numbers Reveal
A look at the numbers points to ominous trends for evangelicals.
First, it doesn’t matter whether people self-identify as evangelical if they don’t go to church. Because if they don’t go to church, churches’ income and reason for existing vanish. Here are titles of three recent books about evangelical Christianity: “The Great Evangelical Recession: Six Factors that Will Crash the American Church … And How... Continue Reading
Should the Church ‘Get Out of the Marriage Business’?
Some Christians wish to privatize marriage into a strictly ecclesial practice, treating it like we would the Lord's Supper or baptism
When the church declines to speak the truth about marriage, it invites competing and false views to rob marriage’s purpose. Were the church to “get out of the marriage business” as some are tempted to demand, two mistakes will follow. First, the church will allow a false understanding of marriage to dominate the public square.... Continue Reading