According to Tocqueville, it is organized religion especially that instills basic conceptions of morality such as respect for marriage and honesty, and it is the transcendent mores implicit in Christianity that place limits on revolutionary or utopian dreams that would overthrow or subvert democratic institutions. Note, however, that while Tocqueville clearly thought that forms of... Continue Reading

With the death of C. Everett Koop, the last of these three figures went to be with the Lord. Preceding him were Francis Schaeffer and Harold O. J. Brown. Together, Brown, Schaeffer, and Koop “successfully called Evangelical leaders back from their flirtation with abortion,”….“These three men made opposition to abortion a defining characteristic of late... Continue Reading

I find that people who are struggling with some issue tend to become myopic. All they see is the particular question or problem that they are struggling with. They fail to step back and see the big picture. Like a person holding his thumb in front of his face and seeing it as larger than... Continue Reading

We’ve all heard and maybe prayed prayers requesting that our minds not be distracted in worship. I’ve often wondered what people think the answer to this prayer might look like. Are we asking to pull the plug of the worshipper’s mind, so that everything about life is drained out except for a special group of... Continue Reading

The meaning of weekend has changed since Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defined it as “often a time during which business is suspended and most shops are closed,” and since the Puritans adopted blue laws to prohibit commercial activity on Sundays.   Sabbath observance is eroding. In general, our culture does not support the biblical view... Continue Reading

Christians who continue to face persecution around the world often look to American Christians to continue to uphold religious freedom and set a standard. Coptic Christians in Egypt have told me that one of their greatest fears is that someday America will no longer be a place where Christians can express and live out their... Continue Reading

Let’s call a spade a spade: sarcasm often gives us license to be lightheartedly hateful. Only I can look inside my heart and determine when I’m honoring God with my sense of humor and when I’m grieving his name. When my sarcasm condemns, judges, shames, or isolates God’s image-bearers, I sin against God’s cherished craftsmanship.... Continue Reading

It’s knowing who Christ was, what He did on the cross, and what He still does for us to this day that strengthens the believer for every task. For Peale’s salesmen, and Edwards, these kinds of biblical verses seemed to be more like a mantra, a self-assuring, almost self-hypnotizing sense that a higher power was... Continue Reading

All too often, rather than turning to God for grace to respond to the wrong with wisdom and forgiveness, we choose to indulge bitterness. We keep thinking about that wrong. We play it like a video in our mind over and over. We stab ourselves with the sharp memory of the incident, feeling the pain... Continue Reading

People will insist that they believe that Adam and Eve were real historical people, that they were the first human beings, created in the image of God. It sounds orthodox on the surface. But we need to dig deeper: what do you mean by human being? Was Adam ever a baby nestled at his mother’s... Continue Reading