• Book Reviews,  Humor

    Tim Challies Embraces the Greatest Disappointment in All of Human History

    When the iPad first came out, Tim Challies gave it a scathing review, calling it “the greatest disappointment in all of human history.” Well, that was then, and this is now. In that earlier review, Challies said that the Kindle did one thing, and it did it better than the iPad. In his latest review, he compares the Kindle with the iPad and says that he will be using the iPad from now on to read books. I think his change of heart is due in no small part to the Kindle for iPad app. Watch the video above, and see if you are ready to drink the Kool-aid too.…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    The Good News We Almost Forgot

    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…

  • Culture,  Politics

    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…

  • Christianity,  Culture

    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…

  • Christianity

    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!

  • News

    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…