I’ve been enjoying Kevin DeYoung’s popular introduction and commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism. The book is titled The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism, and it is a gem. After a brief introduction, the book is divided into fifty-two chapters, corresponding to the Catechism’s own weekly schedule for mastering its 129 questions and answers. Each chapter begins with that week’s Questions and Answers from the Catechism and then is followed by DeYoung’s brief commentary on that reading. The last chapter is followed by a warm-hearted epilogue, calling on Christians to love theology and experience—i.e., to reject the false dichotomy between the “head” and…
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President Nominates Elena Kagan
Here’s the video of the nomination ceremony earlier today. My thoughts on the nomination are here.
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Liberal Dependence on Abortion
Ross Douthat makes some important observations about abortion in red states vs. blue states in today’s New York Times. He writes: “Liberals sometimes argue that their preferred approach to family life reduces the need for abortion. In reality, it may depend on abortion to succeed. The teen pregnancy rate in blue Connecticut, for instance, is roughly identical to the teen pregnancy rate in red Montana. But in Connecticut, those pregnancies are half as likely to be carried to term. Over all, the abortion rate is twice as high in New York as in Texas and three times as high in Massachusetts as in Utah. “So it isn’t just contraception that…
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Get Your Growtivation On
The media team at North Point community church satirizes the formula for contemporary worship services. (HT: Tim Challies)
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Obama To Name Kagan to Supreme Court
NBC News reports that President Obama will nominate U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Who is this nominee? MSNBC.com has “The Skinny on Elena Kagan.”
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Ken Starr Begins at Baylor
The New York Times reports on Ken Starr’s forthcoming tenure as the president of Baylor University. Starr begins on June 1. Here’s a snippet from the report: “Baylor’s growth into a large research university is now irreversible, but its Christian character remains unsettled. Dr. Sloan recruited several prominent evangelicals, and was known to reject potential hires for not being able to articulate how faith had influenced their academic lives. Even so, the faculty is perceived to be more liberal in its Christianity than many Texas Baptists, including Baylor’s alumni. “Despite his notorious prosecutorial history, Mr. Starr may be the Christian conciliator Baylor needs. In his faith life, he has tacked…
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Congratulations, Boyce Class of 2010!
Today we celebrated the commencement of the 2010 graduates of Boyce College. You can watch my charge to the graduates above, or you can listen to it below. If you are interested in the manuscript of my address, you can download it here. Dr. Mohler’s address is here. [audio:http://www.sbts.edu/media/audio/spring2010/20100506-boyce-grad-burk.mp3] Congratulations, Boyce College class of 2010!
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Michael Gerson on the iPad
“I like my Kindle’s battery life. I can’t type on the iPad’s maddening virtual keyboard. But really there is no comparison. The iPad is one of the most elegant, useful, astoundingly cool objects ever produced by the mind of man. Da Vinci would drool. Newton would show an equal and opposite attraction. Edison would ignore the objections of his wife and buy one, preferably the model with 64 gigabytes… “The combination of the Internet and the iPad has changed our relation to the written word forever. The Information Age is now affordable, portable, intuitively organized and infinitely customizable. All future content, including books and newspapers, will need to assume the…
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Speaking of Franklin Graham
Albert Mohler sees the bigger picture in Franklin Graham’s disinvitation from praying at the Pentagon. Mohler asks the salient question: “Who Will Be Tested Next? — The Dilemma of Franklin Graham.” Mohler writes, “Evangelical Christians in the United States had better see a big challenge staring us in the face. Franklin Graham was disinvited by the Pentagon for making statements that are required by faithfulness to the gospel of Christ. As reports make clear, it is not just his statements about Islam being prone to violence that cause offense, it is his statements that Islam is wicked because it does not lead to salvation in Christ that cause the greatest…
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Jon Meacham vs. Franklin Graham
Newsweek has a fascinating conversation between Jon Meacham and Franklin Graham about Graham’s disinvitation from the “National Day of Prayer” ceremony at the Pentagon. To me what was most interesting was Meacham’s open animus towards Franklin’s position—an odd posture for a journalist. Meacham simply tells Franklin that he is offended by the public expression of Franklin’s views on Islam.