I want readers to understand that faith matters. It significantly shapes the thought and actions of many Americans. Few of their biographers have recognized how powerfully their faith affected our chief executives. Only a handful of scholars have comprehended how much the religious convictions of presidents helped shape their policies.   Editor’s note: The “V&V... Continue Reading

“Evangelicalism as a movement is ill-equipped to handle the questions which current sexual identity movements are posing, and that for several reasons to which Bannerman provides biblical answers.  And these questions, even more than, say, abortion, are going to be pressing issues for church members in every place of work they find themselves.”   The... Continue Reading

This book will prove to be helpful for those who want to survey the state of this debate in Evangelicalism today. The authors don’t sugarcoat the controversy and are at times painfully honest. They bring a wealth of research together, surveying the historical background to the controversy and marshal an impressive array of scientific arguments... Continue Reading

The way to protect religious liberty is not to bleat for it but to expose the distortions, conjectural ploys, and rabble-rousing used against it. It requires tooth. By contrast, the bishops’ bridge-over-troubled-waters approach signaled to RFRA antagonists that self-serving outbursts really do work. It cooperated with bootlicking politicians in ceding ground that was never in... Continue Reading

Thomas Kelly (1769-1855) wrote more than 750 hymns, including Stricken, Smitten, And Afflicted in 1804. Kelly planned to be a lawyer but after his conversion the Irishman decided to enter the ministry. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1792, but later became a “dissenting” minister.   This is part of an intermittent series... Continue Reading

The need for intimate friendship and the practices that foster it is all the more pressing in our day and age, as our culture has not only drained friendship of its public social benefit but placed a variety of economic, technological and political counterweights against it. The local church can be a place to nurture... Continue Reading

Haykin argues that this framework was the foundation for Irenaeus’s dispute with Gnostics and others over the truthfulness and sufficiency of Scripture. As Haykin notes via Norbert Brox: “[In] Irenaeus this principle stands at the beginning [of his thought]: that the Bible is in every respect perfect and sufficient.”   Okay, okay. I do need... Continue Reading

Wilberforce is saying that nominal Christians give a portion, or compartment, of their life to the Christian religion.  That compartment has a place in life along with other things, and sometimes the religious compartment claims some of their time or thoughts or money, and they think that’s good enough.  The other compartments of life are... Continue Reading

As she recounts fears and anxieties that range from going through turbulence on an airplane, to “not measuring up” to expectations of her family, church, or the world (or other mothers, wives, or body images), to imagined tragedies like losing her husband or children, Trillia invites readers “to crawl, wobble, and walk with [her] through... Continue Reading

“How do you make music that feels authentically Christian and authentically hip hop at the same time, when so many of the messages commonly heard in hip hop are at odds with a Christian worldview that opposes violence, substance abuse, and promiscuity?”   “We don’t challenge any heresy in the church!” John Perkins declared at... Continue Reading