• Personal,  Theology/Bible

    Book Notice

    Thank the Lord! The contract is signed, and my dissertation is scheduled to be published this summer in Sheffield Phoenix Press’s New Testament Monographs series. The book will be number 14 in the series, and the title is “Articular Infinitives in the Greek of the New Testament: On the Exegetical Benefit of Grammatical Precision.” As you can tell from the title, this book promises to be a real page-turner. I fully anticipate for Susan and me to be able to retire on the proceeds that I will receive from this blockbuster treatise. This book will likely be the surprise hit of the summer, and I expect it will be flying…

  • Theology/Bible

    “C.S. Lewis and the Quirky Idea of Male Headship”

    Russell Moore has another great post. This one addresses C. S. Lewis’s views on male headship. The essay is titled, “C.S. Lewis and the Quirky Idea of Male Headship.” Moore is on a roll in this one. He comments on Wheaton professor Alan Jacobs’ speculation on C. S. Lewis’ view of the gender roles. Here’s one of Moore’s quotable zingers: “Jacobs argues that Lewis’s views of male headship would be articulated quite differently were he alive today . . . Professor Jacobs assumes then that Lewis’s views on male headship were culturally conditioned, that he would not consider the matter as important if only he could see the orthodox Christian…

  • Culture,  Politics,  Theology/Bible

    “The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have”

    Patricia E. Bauer with her husband, Edward Muller, and their children, Margaret and Johnny Muller, in June at Margaret’s high school graduation in Massachusetts. Photo Credit: Courtesy Christina Overland Patricia E. Bauer, former Washington Post reporter and bureau chief, writes a stunningly pro-life Op-Ed today titled “The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have.” The article discusses whether it is right to abort a baby simply because pre-natal testing confirms that the baby has a disability. In Bauer’s case, the issue is intensely personal because she is raising a daughter named Margaret who has Down syndrome. She writes this about her daughter: Margaret is a person and a member of…

  • Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Will James Dobson and Richard Land Be Subpoenaed?

    It looks like James Dobson, Richard Land and others may very well be subpoenaed to appear before the Senate judiciary committee. The subpoenas look more and more likely as news of a certain conference call becomes public. According to John Fund in today’s Wall Street Journal, Dobson, Land and others were a part of a conference call, set up by the Bush administration, in which they received assurances that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Here is a paragraph from Fund’s piece: The conference call will no doubt prove controversial on Capitol Hill, always a tinderbox for rumors that any judicial nominee has taken…

  • Politics,  Theology/Bible

    “Strong Grounding in the Church Could Be a Clue to Miers’s Priorities”

    (From the Washington Post) “One evening in the 1980s, several years after Harriet Miers dedicated her life to Jesus Christ, she attended a lecture at her Dallas evangelical church with Nathan Hecht, a colleague at her law firm and her on-again, off-again boyfriend. The speaker was Paul Brand, a surgeon and the author of ‘Fearfully and Wonderfully Made,’ a best-selling exploration of God and the human body. “When the lecture was over, Miers said words Hecht had never heard from her before. ‘I’m convinced that life begins at conception,’ Hecht recalled her saying. According to Hecht, now a Texas Supreme Court justice, Miers has believed ever since that abortion is…

  • Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Why Quick Endorsements for Miers from Evangelicals?

    The newspaper of record has the best reporting that I have seen thus far on Harriet Miers. The story is titled “In Midcareer, a Turn to Faith to Fill a Void.” This article gives great insight into Miers’s conversion to evangelical faith and the subsequent reconfiguring of her politics. This one is definitely worth your taking the time to read it. For those who have been wondering how prominent Evangelicals have been able to offer such a quick endorsement of someone who is largely an unknown quantity (e.g. James Dobson), there may be some information in this piece that helps to explain. The White House had Texas Supreme Court justice…

  • Culture,  Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Encouraging News about Harriet Miers?

    World magazine’s blog has an encouraging set of entries on Harriet Miers. According to an interview with her good friend, Texas Supreme Court justice Nathan Hecht, she is an originalist in her approach to constitutional (and biblical!) interpretation. The blog also reports that Miers is a committed evangelical Christian who is a regular tither to her church in Dallas and who holds the same position on abortion as the majority of other evangelicals in America. As for reports that Miers donated money to Democrat candidates for President in the late 80’s, Hecht says, “If she did it, it was because [her law] firm made her do it.”

  • Culture,  Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Scopes Monkey Trial 2: Intelligent Design on Trial

    The New York Times reports today about an upcoming court case in Pennsylvania. “Advocates on both sides of the issue have lined up behind the case, often calling it Scopes II, in reference to the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial that was the last century’s great face-off over evolution. “On the evolutionists’ side is a legal team put together by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. These groups want to put intelligent design itself on trial and discredit it so thoroughly that no other school board would dare authorize teaching it. “Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the A.C.L.U. of Pennsylvania, said the…