• Personal,  Theology/Bible

    John Piper and Cancer

    John Piper has written a letter announcing that he has prostate cancer. The letter is available here on the Desiring God website. Those of you who read my blog know how much I love Dr. Piper and how important his ministry has been in my life. I hope you might be willing to join me in praying for him, his church, and his family.

  • Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Who’s Dodging a Judicial Philosophy?

    Stephen L. Carter of Christianity Today expresses a bit of cynicism concerning evangelicals who hold to Originalism as a judicial philosophy (see “The ‘Judicial Philosophy’ Dodge”). He thinks the very notion of having a judicial philosophy is a “slippery” business at best. All the talk about opposing judges who “legislate from the bench” and supporting judges who interpret the Constitution according to “original intent” is just code for one’s position on abortion. For Carter, the popular distinction between Originalism and the “Living Constitution” approach is nonsense—“not merely nonsense, but nonsense on stilts.” Carter may be correct that some evangelicals support justices based on outcomes and not based on actual judicial…

  • Theology/Bible

    Bethlehem Withdraws the Motion to Accept Unbaptized Persons as Members

    For those of you who read my blog, you may remember my two previous posts on the elders at John Piper’s church who were proposing that certain unbaptized persons be accepted into their fellowship as members (read them here and here). You may also remember my post in December in which I disagreed with this decision on the part of the elders (read it here). I am happy to learn that the elders have withdrawn the motion (click here to read the notice on the church’s website). Bethlehem still needs our prayers, however, as the issue is still not resolved. This is evident in the statement posted on the church’s…

  • Culture,  Theology/Bible

    The Incoherence of Darwinism on Display

    Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London, writes an interesting Op-Ed in today’s New York Times titled, “Why I’m Happy I Evolved.” The essay is interesting because it puts on plain display the incoherence of atheistic Darwinism. She writes: Some people want to think of humans as the product of a special creation, separate from other living things. I am not among them; I am glad it is not so. I am proud to be part of the riot of nature, to know that the same forces that produced me also produced bees, giant ferns and microbes that live at the bottom of the sea. It is…

  • Culture,  Theology/Bible

    The Last Christmas Blog

    Since it is New Year’s Day, I figure there is time for one last holiday post. World Magazine takes an entertaining look at Santa Claus and makes the argument that jolly old St. Nick should be enlisted in the Christian cause. The article is titled, “Slappy holiday: Why not take the Santa Claus tradition a little further?” If you are a theologue, then you will likely find this piece quite amusing. HT: Carl Miller, the SixPointCalvinist

  • Culture,  Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Deliver Us from Kony

    Christianity Today has run an article on what U.N. officials have called “one of the worst human-rights crises of the past century.” The article is titled “Deliver Us from Kony” and is about the butchery and inhumanity of a guerilla paramilitary group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. The leader of the LRA is Joseph Kony. The worst of the LRA’s crimes have been perpetrated against children, whom the LRA routinely kidnaps and forces to serve in their ranks. Perhaps the greatest atrocity is teaching these children that they spread this carnage by the power of the Holy Spirit to purify the “unrepentant,” twisting Christianity into…

  • Culture,  Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Guilt by Association: Intelligent Design on Trial

    U.S. District Judge John E. Jones put Intelligent Design (ID) on trial in the Pennsylvania legal battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. Judge Jones ruled that the Dover School Board violated the constitution in requiring science teachers to read a brief statement about ID and evolution before teaching about evolution in Dover Public Schools (click here to download the proposed statement). In Judge Jones’s 139-page opinion, he charges that “ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism” (p. 31). In other words, as far as Judge Jones is concerned, ID is simply creationism in sheep’s clothing. Judge Jones argues that ID has a religious pedigree linking…

  • Politics,  Theology/Bible

    N. T. Wright and American “Imperialism”

    The Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal.com has a great piece on N. T. Wright and his influence on American Evangelicalism. It is titled “Reform Party: A British Theologian Takes Another Stab at It.” John Wilson, the author of this piece, argues that N. T. Wright is “the most influential biblical scholar in American evangelical circles today.” According to Wilson, this fact is a great irony because Wright regularly denounces the “imperialism” of U.S. foreign policy—a criticism that most American evangelicals would not agree with.