I have a whole new appreciation for Luke—doctor, historian, and linguistic master. “Both Luke and the author of Hebrews are described by most New Testament scholars as the most literary writers of the New Testament” (139). A writer would do well just studying the prologues of Luke, Acts, and Hebrews. Luke is doing so much... Continue Reading

Our recognition that we are incongruent with ourselves and our longing for another world (one without pain) can be made sense of most fully by a Christian theological framework, one in which God’s redemption extends to God’s (incongruent) imagers but also to his (fallen) cosmos. When we laugh at ourselves and at our location in... Continue Reading

Douthat argues that two strategies were open to the mainline churches—“accommodation” and “resistance.” Many in both mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic circles sought to accommodate themselves and their churches to the new spirit of the age with naturalistic, political, this-worldly forms of Christianity. But this effort at accommodation largely failed in that there was no... Continue Reading

In short, the New New Testament is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The council that put these books forth is a farce. It has nothing to do with the councils of old, yet implicitly seeks to claim authority on the basis of concocted semblance. The books were selected by those who, though certainly having a... Continue Reading

Brown explores the world Tolkien made in a new book The Christian World of the Hobbit (Abingdon Press, 2012). In this work, he demonstrates how Tolkien’s Christian worldview bleeds through his written works and permeates the world he made. This aspect of Tolkien’s work is puzzling to many. His books have almost no references to... Continue Reading

Notice that right from the beginning these apocryphal writings are described as “lost scriptures.” Thus, it is already assumed from the outset that these books are scripture, but somehow they have been left out of the canon (no doubt by those pesky, narrow orthodox folks). The problem with this language, of course, is that the... Continue Reading

But while such grandiose claims about the New Testament canon may seem entirely new, it is in fact a very, very old idea. For one, there are other modern examples of such activity. The book The Five Gospels (Harper One, 1996), effectively rewrote the 4-Gospel canon by adding a fifth gospel, The Gospel of Thomas.... Continue Reading

The first order of a Christian scholar is not to present a polemic to help fight the culture war, but rather, the accurate presentation and careful analysis of all the facts, even if those facts show a person or event or theory in a less than favorable light. This is the third and final round... Continue Reading

I was moved by Loritt’s pastoral critique of Wilson. He assessed that the coldness or lack of concern for “the other” probably lies in the fact that real relationships with Blacks don’t exist for Wilson. I’m tempted to agree with Loritts. I know a few people (who happen to love Wilson) who lack deep relationships... Continue Reading

Walker Percy: “The present-day unbeliever is crazy because he finds himself born into a world of endless wonders, having no notion how he got here, a world in which he … grows old, gets sick, and dies, and is quite content to have it so … as if his prostate were not growing cancerous, his arteries turning to chalk,... Continue Reading