“It has been interesting to hear how people express themselves when death comes. Words fail. Some try to force words, attempting to manufacture something that will fix the mess or soothe the pain. Religious platitudes abound. I know the words are well-intended, but they rarely help. Simply being present is helpful.”   I started along... Continue Reading

“The florist, Barronelle Stutzman, had served the gay customers, Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed, many times over a number of years, including by providing flowers for birthdays and other personal events; she objected only to providing flowers for their wedding.”   On Feb. 16, Washington’s state Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s judgment that the... Continue Reading

To be pro-life must mean being pro-truth as well. For we believe America’s current theory and practice of abortion rests on two lies: The lie that the unborn human person has no inherent dignity, and the lie that a right to killing an unborn human can be found in the Constitution’s penumbras and emanations. These... Continue Reading

Pascal added: People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. Put simply, Pascal suggests that before disagreeing with someone, first point out the ways in which they’re right. And to effectively persuade someone to change their mind, lead them... Continue Reading

We can’t repent on behalf of others.  Those who claim ‘you can’t face up to the truth’ are in one sense right.  We can’t.  At least if we saw ourselves and our sin as God sees it, we would not be able to stand.   It was the apostle Paul who towards the end of his... Continue Reading

It’s not that we’ve suddenly become drama queens; I think it happens for at least three reasons. We have been taught that we are the centre of our world—that life is all about me. So if anything crosses our happiness we blow it out of all proportion. We have been conned into thinking that this life is our only chance at happiness, and if we don’t get it now, then we are ruined forever. And thirdly we have removed God from the picture—so we have no true sense of scale, and no possibility of hope when things go wrong (genuinely or otherwise).

This writer would add that in the current conflict over liberty of conscience in accommodating the sexual revolution, privatization of religion means that legal and social requirements to accommodate sin must be complied with. Effectively what is being proposed is “Sunday Christianity,” which is not Biblical at all. Additionally, conscience is the sense of right and wrong, and it cannot possibly be right to act against it. This approach involves such a radical change in Christian faith that it cannot reasonably be called a Christian approach to the world, but rather largely eliminates Christian faith and morals from life and the public square.

The Bible begs to differ. Writing on behalf of God, Paul says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality. … For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” The Christian life is inseparable from sexual purity.   There’s a lot of porn in the... Continue Reading

As husband and wife achieving adulthood together, young Christians serve as a witness of God’s plan and God’s gift before a confused world. Christians understand that sex before and outside of marriage is simply not an option. Cohabiting is inconsistent with obedience to Christ. Children are God’s gifts to be received and welcomed within the marriage covenant. Tellingly, secular authorities in the culture are now expressing worry about the delay of marriage among young Americans. When Time magazine is concerned about young Americans not getting married, Christians must be doubly concerned.

As I was talking about these titles, giving my two-sentence synopses on the books, Dana said that we should make book flights for different topics. Her sister-in-law, Laura, had just shared an article with her where wine tasters were throwing around the idea. There we were, on an unseasonably warm day in February, dining on the outside patio of the Main Cup, eating our bomb salads with fried goat cheese, and I realized that all my life I had been missing something---book flights! This should revolutionize the way books stores market. They should offer flights with discounts. Authors, professors, pastors, and informed laymen should put together flights for recommendation.