I can’t stop thinking about the Charlie Kirk memorial that I watched earlier this evening. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it. When have we ever seen the Vice-President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and many other high public officials speak of their faith in Christ? It was even more stunning that such high officials shared the platform with the likes of us “low church” evangelicals. But there it was. I have no illusions about what that gathering was. It was less of a church service than it was a political rally. Nevertheless, many of the Christians who…
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SBTS Professors Reflect on the Life and Death of Charlie Kirk
Charlie Kirk had a gift for communicating a Christian conservative vision to the the rising generation of young people, especially to college students. He was very effective, and his influence was vast. Our campus at Boyce College and Southern Seminary is no exception to that influence. Indeed, some of our students convened their own prayer vigils last night as a consequence of the shooting. All that to say, many of our students — especially at the College — have been impacted by Kirk’s life and horrified by his murder. For this reason, Dr. Mohler set aside the normal chapel program to have a time of reflection and discussion on the…
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The Assassination of Charlie Kirk (1993-2025)
Late this afternoon, one of my students stopped me in a parking lot at Boyce College and asked if I had heard the news. I had been teaching for hours at that point and told him I hadn’t heard anything. So he informed me that Charlie Kirk had been shot and was fighting for his life in the hospital. My student then described in violent detail what had happened. The videos were all over social media, and he had seen the horrifying spectacle with his own eyes. He also asked me to pray—which I did as I hurried to my vehicle to get my phone out and see the news…
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Violence in Charlotte and Men Without Chests
On this episode, Jon, Denny, and Colin discuss the senseless murder of a young Ukrainian woman, Iryna Zarutska, on the public transit of Charlotte, NC, and how it points to a cultural need for what C.S. Lewis called “men with chests.”
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Discussing Deconstruction and Jen Hatmaker
In my last post, I linked to my recent column in WORLD magazine about Jen Hatmaker’s revealing interview with The New York Times. We discussed her interview and ministry further on this week’s episode of the CBMW Podcast (see below). The World and Everything in It also ran an audio version of the article. You can find it here or listen below. https://www4.wng.org/Denny-Burk-The-fall-of-Jen-Hatmaker.mp3
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The Deconstruction of Jen Hatmaker
Over the weekend, Jen Hatmaker appeared in an interview with The New York Times about her forthcoming memoir titled Awake (Simon & Schuster, 2025). In it, she reveals that she no longer goes to any church at all. She’s divorced and says she’s dating a guy and going through a “sexual renaissance.” She’s learning to focus for the first time on what she wants in the bedroom. The whole conversation is immodest, ugly, and sad. It is as complete and thorough an apostasy as I have ever seen. [Read the rest of this column at here at WORLD magazine.]
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Dear Mr. President, about going to heaven… (an open letter to President Trump)
Dear Mr. President, I saw your remarks about heaven on Fox & Friends from Tuesday morning, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to have heard them. It is a rare thing for a world leader to reflect so openly about his own mortality and about what waits on the other side. Even in polite conversation, most people don’t want to “go there,” much less in front of millions of viewers. But you did go there, and there are millions of us who are grateful that you did. Sadly, the human condition is such that people are often reluctant to think about what you brought up on Tuesday morning. Aren’t there happier…
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Should Women Serve as “Shepherds”? – CBMW Podcast
As I mentioned earlier this week, some churches are appointing female “shepherds” in an effort to get around the biblical prohibition on female “pastors.” On this episode of The CBMW Podcast, we discuss what the Bible says about gender, the office of pastor, and why it matters. [Watch below on YouTube, or listen below on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.]
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Why I Do Not Favor the Moniker “Biblical Patriarchy”
Complementarian doctrine doesn’t require adherents to adopt a certain label for their view. It’s far more important for people to accept and affirm the Bible’s teaching on manhood and womanhood than for them to embrace any specific moniker for it. Having said that, there is great value in being precise and clear when thinking about and communicating Christian doctrine. For that reason, I still prefer and recommend the use of the term “complementarianism” to label our position over “biblical patriarchy.” I have made a positive case for “complementarianism” elsewhere. In this essay, I want to respond to some of the critiques in Doug Ponder’s thoughtful essay weighing the relative merits…
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The Innermost Meaning of the Cross is Penal Substitution
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him… But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will…
