The three martyrs were buried in Turkey: Tilman Geske (46), Ugur Yuksel (32), and Necati Aydin (36). Necati (right) was the one reading the Bible when their martyrdom began. Reports say that he was stabbed multiple times during his three hour torture before his throat was finally cut. Necati was married and a father of two preschool aged children. The letter from the Protestant Church in Turkey offers this description of Necati’s funeral:
-
-
Men of Whom the World Was Not Worthy
Ugur Yuksel Tilman Geske with his wife and three children Necati Aydin Two weeks ago, I saw a little story in the Associated Press about some Christians who were murdered in Turkey. The story was relatively non-descript. It briefly noted that three Christians had their throats cut by some Islamic radicals. The rest of the piece talked about how religious persecution might hurt Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Little did I know then the horror and the glory of what really happened. On Wednesday April 18 many people in America were still focused on the aftermath of the massacre at Virginia Tech and had already moved on to…
-
John Piper on Supreme Court’s Partial Birth Abortion Decision
John Piper is inimitable. He always speaks with prophetic power, but especially when he speaks about abortion. It was his preaching against abortion that awakened my own heart to the urgency and the priority of this issue for Christian social engagement. I have not been the same since.
-
N. T. Wright Dismisses Penal Substitution
I suspect that Bishop N. T. Wright would not appreciate my saying that he has dismissed penal substitution, especially since he himself maintains that he holds to “something that can be called ‘penal substitution.'” But this affirmation is precisely the problem. His definition of penal substitution is clearly at odds with what penal substitution is (at least historically defined). In an essay titled “The Cross and the Caricatures,” Wright contends that any idea of an angry Father punishing his loving Son is a “caricature” of the penal substitution theory of the atonement. Wright affirms Steve Chalke’s definition of Christ’s atonement, which he describes as follows:
-
Therapy or Theology? Responding to the Massacre.
As I type this blog, Dr. Phil is holding forth on “Larry King Live.” He’s saying that there was no way that anyone could have predicted that the troubled Cho Seung-Hui would have perpetrated the awful massacre at Virginia Tech on Monday. Dr. Phil makes his case as controversy has already erupted over the University’s failure to prevent this tragedy by failing to respond to early signs that Seung-Hui was a troubled, depressed person. Dr. Phil advises, “There is no answer to ‘why,’ so the question becomes ‘what.'” What ought survivors to do now to cope with this meaningless catastrophe?
-
Tommy Nelson on Depression
Most people know Tommy Nelson as the “sex guy” who goes around the country teaching conferences on the biblical book The Song of Solomon. In the Dallas area, Tommy is known as one of the few preachers actually willing to build a ministry on the verse-by-verse exposition of the scripture.
-
Pacifism vs. Just War
As the war in Iraq continues, controversy persists in America over the morality of war in general and of the Iraq War in particular. American Christians are far from univocal on this point as both Christian pacifists and just war theorists stake their claims in the current debate. The Spring 2007 issue of the Criswell Theological Review enters this fray in its consideration of “War and Peace.” Contributors to the current volume include figures as diverse as Stanley Hauerwas and Richard Land. Both the pacifist and the just war options are vigorously defended in this issue, yet CTR’s editor says that Tim Erdel’s article presents one of the strongest arguments…
-
Stanley Hauerwas on the Sacrifices of War
The topic of the Spring 2007 issue of the Criswell Theological Review is “War and Peace.” Stanley Hauerwas makes a poignant contribution to the journal with his “Sacrificing the Sacrifices of War.” His main point is that the biggest sacrifice of war does not consist in the lives that are lost, but in the loss of our unwillingness to kill (p. 80). One of the main tragedies of war according to Hauerwas, is the fact that war takes otherwise ordinary citizens and turns them into killers.
-
Update: Klouda v. Southwestern Seminary
Sam Hodges of the Dallas Morning News reports: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth has filed a motion in federal court, asking for dismissal of the suit recently filed former professor Sheri Klouda.
-
Einstein and Faith
TIME magazine has a fascinating excerpt from a new biography of Albert Einstein. This particular piece describes Einstein’s religious views, which were more akin to Spinoza’s than one might expect. “For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God’s existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the world was comprehensible, that it followed laws, was worthy of awe.” According to the author, Einstein was a determinist with no place for a personal god. His religion bore a greater resemblance to Deism than it did to Judaism or Christianity, though he had a detached appreciation for elements from both of the latter.…