Once a major asset to American life, the independence of nonprofits is being eroded by politics. Their effectiveness is ebbing. There may be a lesson for the church in that story as well. The Nonprofit Crisis offers valuable insight into what we’re losing as polarized politics takes over our culture.   Nonprofits have a long and storied... Continue Reading

Christians have known that food and cloth dedicated to the altar can be sanctified, dedicated toward a good use: “nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving.” Even the Machine’s all-enframing and all-pervasive scope in our lives does not mean it cannot also be “sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.”  ... Continue Reading

Conybeare rightly devotes a substantial section of her biography to this dispute given that it deeply involves what it meant for Augustine to be African. As she observes: “Whatever else was claiming Augustine’s attention through the decades of his bishopric, the resistance of the African church must have been a nagging pain. It threatened his... Continue Reading

Here is my simple encouragement for the new year: read the great books. They require effort (I’ll give some brief advice below) but they are great precisely because they repay that effort. You might read War and Peace and decide never to read it again, but the point is not that every great book will become your favorite. The point is... Continue Reading

“The problem that we need to correct,” say the authors, “is our view of the addict, so that we can minister to them as the Lord Jesus would have us to. We must see the addict as the Lord Jesus sees the addict–as a soul made in the image of God, broken by sin and... Continue Reading

Loving one’s country includes urging it toward righteousness, engaging in peaceful and principled public life, and speaking prophetic truth when needed. Darling notes that America’s finest reformers—Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr.—did precisely this. Each pointed the nation back to its noblest principles while calling for repentance where it had gone astray.... Continue Reading

Tim Challies shares his most helpful Christian books of the year—plus a bonus pick—that offered biblical wisdom on everything from aging gracefully to navigating tech, disagreement, and ethical investing.   As another year draws to a close, I wanted to take some time to consider the books I read in 2025 and to assemble a... Continue Reading

I certainly know that not all elders are qualified or godly. Before resorting to a soft feminism, try this: Vote out bad, unqualified elders. After reading this book and its sexist claims against godly elders, re-read the qualifications for elders and see if any of those are reflected in the disdain elders are treated with... Continue Reading

The great pastor/theologian states that, if all the glory of the Kingdom was revealed all at once (or too soon), we would simply not be able to handle it; (and we would not fully appreciate it). Of course, according to this schema, the first two stages have already been reached.  Two more are to come.  Even in the 18th century (when Edwards lived), “Antichrist” was very much still a force... Continue Reading

Buy ten copies. Give one to every man in your church. Give one to your elders and ask them to preach its content from the pulpit. Give one to the twenty-something who just confessed his struggle and was told by the last book he read that his desires are “part of his story.”   Jared... Continue Reading