• Culture,  Theology/Bible

    September 11, 2001

    Of course I’ll never forget where I was on September 11, 2001. My wife and I were in our second year of marriage, and we were living in Louisville, Kentucky while I was working on my Ph.D. On the morning of the attacks, I was in our apartment, and she called me from work to tell me to turn the television on. I think both buildings had already been struck by the time I tuned in, but I was watching live television as both of them eventually crumbled to the ground. The emotion of that day has left an indelible mark on me. The uncertainty. The questions. The very real…

  • Politics

    General Betray Us?

    Politics reached a new low in the run-up to General Petreaus’ testimony before Congress yesterday. The editors at The Wall Street Journal excoriated the slanderous tactics used against Petreaus and have called for congressional Democrats to repudiate MoveOn.org’s full-page ad in The New York Times which renamed the general “General Betray Us.” Norman Podhoretz gives a good account of the “Vietnam syndrome” that has given birth to the cynicism that seems to be the order of the day in politics. In “America the Ugly,” he writes: “It is impossible at this point to predict how and when the battle of Iraq will end. But from the vitriolic debates it has…

  • Theology/Bible

    More John Piper on the Problem of Evil

    The discussion about Greg Boyd and the problem of evil is still ongoing as I write this blog. The whole thing began with John Piper (John Piper, Greg Boyd, Denny Burk, Greg Boyd, Denny Burk), and so it’s fitting to bring him in again now. Last week John Piper delivered a series of message at Wheaton College titled “Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer.” In these messages he addresses the very questions we’ve been discussing for over a week now. If Piper’s messages do anything, they show that the view I have been arguing for is not narrowly derived from the book of Job. Dr. Piper powerfully communicates the…

  • Culture,  Politics

    A Publicity Coup for Noam Chomsky . . . Not!

    You’ve gotta feel for the guy a little bit. Everyone’s favorite linguist has put his best foot forward to write about politics and other areas outside his technical expertise (We know a little bit about that on this blog!). Nevertheless, Noam Chomsky seems to be the man of the hour among all the wrong people. Last Fall, Chomsky got endorsed by the world’s most notorious dictator, Hugo Chávez. And now this Fall, he has just been endorsed by the world’s most notorious terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. All in all, I’d say that’s a pretty bad 12 months worth of publicity. Talk about your unintended consequences!

  • Christianity,  Politics

    A Good Word from Tony Snow

    I’m thankful for public servants like Tony Snow—so much so that I have written about him more than once on this blog (see here). Last week, he announced that he would resign as President Bush’s press secretary. Many people will remember that he is a cancer survivor. Unfortunately his cancer has returned. Snow wrote a short piece for Christianity Today describing his decision to step down, and he also shared some of his reflections on having cancer. You should read the whole essay, but one line stuck out to me: “We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go…

  • Theology/Bible

    Greg Boyd Responds to My Post

    Dr. Greg Boyd is a well-known open theist. Open theists do not believe in God’s omniscience classically defined. They believe that God does not know the future in as much as the future depends upon the choices that will be made by His free creatures. Of course, this is a radical (and I believe dangerous) innovation in the doctrine of God that has wide-ranging implications. Last month, I wrote a short blog post on the collapse of the I-35 bridge. In it, I took issue with Boyd‘s open theist view of how God relates to calamities, and I did so using the book of Job as a case study. I…

  • Theology/Bible

    More on Literacy and the Gospel

    I’m so thankful that God’s word is inerrant as every day reveals that my words are not! That was certainly the case in a short column I wrote last week for the Baptist Press, “Literacy and the Gospel.” That is why Dr. Grant Lovejoy of the International Mission Board wrote a helpful response to correct a potential misunderstanding that might have resulted from my article. His article is titled “Gospel’s Advance Can’t Wait for Literacy,” and you should read it. The main point of the article is on target, though I would challenge some of his supporting arguments.

  • Sports

    Still a Sucker for the Underdog

    I’m still a big fat sucker for the underdog. I loved it when Boise State put it on Oklahoma in last Season’s Fiesta Bowl. And I loved it on Saturday when Appalachian State beat Michigan. Can you believe that? I still can’t. It’s not just that a Division 1-AA school beat a Division 1-A school. This little David beat the number 5 Goliath in the country, the University of Michigan. Pat Forde of ESPN has it right:

  • Christianity,  Theology/Bible

    John Piper on Tattoos and Body-Piercing

    I get asked from time to time about the Bible’s teaching on tattoos and body-piercing. Typically, the questions center on the interpretation of Leviticus 19:28: “You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD.” I am in basic agreement with John Piper on this question. I suspect that the prohibition of Leviticus 19:28 is rooted in a concern about pagan religious practices. Thus the tattoos and cutting of the body in Leviticus 19:28 were evil relative to their association with paganism. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any reasons to think twice about getting a…