This post is for the bibliophiles and theologues who read this blog. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz announces that archeologists have discovered Herod the Great’s tomb. Herod the Great was the Jewish king when Jesus was born. His reign was more or less a police state in which many lived in fear. Matthew’s Gospel says that he ordered the execution of all the male babies in Bethlehem when he heard that “the King of the Jews” had been born there (Matthew 2:1-18). Herod became famous for his building projects, and his work on the temple in Jerusalem made it almost into a new temple. This is a significant find not only…
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Why Remember the Martyrs? (Part 2)
Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News continues our conversation from yesterday in a piece titled, “Does dying for religion’s sake merit extra attention?” I think that title is not the best way to frame the question. I say this because for some people such martyrdoms will merit extra attention, and for other people they won’t.
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Why Remember the Martyrs?
In an attempt to raise awareness about the Turkish martyrs, I sent their story to a religion writer at the Dallas Morning News. He posted links to reports about them on the Dallas Morning News religion blog: “The killing of Christians in Turkey.” Unfortunately, one of the other religion writers at the Dallas Morning News got rankled by my concern for the martyrs. His frustration with me is posted here: “With all due respect to Professor Burk.” This reporter’s main problem with my efforts is that he thinks I am paying too little attention to all the suffering in the world. The murder of three Christians is not such a…
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Men of Whom the World Was Not Worthy (Part 2)
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:
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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…
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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.
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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:
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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?
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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.
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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…