I just read the news about the passing of Malcolm-Jamal Warner. According to reports, it was an accidental drowning. He was 54. For folks in my generation, Warner lives in our imaginations as Theo, the precocious teenage son of Clair and Cliff Huxtable. Even though it was a fictional family, they were nearly universally beloved. They were a picture of what everyone wished their family could be–loving, committed, loyal, not broken or perverse. They honored the grandparents and hung together. And they made us laugh. Pure joy. It was more than a sitcom. It was an ideal. An aspiration. That is why it was so hard to learn the distance…
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The Reports of Complementarian Demise Are Greatly Exagerrated
Aaron Renn is very insightful when he’s offering cultural and sociological analysis. However, his most recent essay on complementarianism doesn’t engage either theology or history. In this case, his analysis of complementarianism goes awry because he takes his generalizations about Boomers (which are generally correct) and then uses them as axioms to interrogate a biblical doctrine. The result is that he makes some pretty basic theological and the historical mistakes. Beyond Boomerism – Evangelical gender theology and why younger generations have to unshackle themselves from being overly wedded to Boomer thinking https://t.co/l2Kc93eC5v — Aaron M. Renn ?? (@aaron_renn) July 17, 2025 He claims that Piper and Grudem enjoy pope-like status…
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How a Christian Patriot Loves His Wayward Nation
If you’ve never seen G. K. Chesterton’s reflections on being a Christian patriot, I encourage you to read “The Flag of the World” in his classic work Orthodoxy. Chesterton contends that love of one’s homeland is not like house-hunting—an experience in which you weigh the pros and cons of a place and choose accordingly. He writes: A man belongs to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. He has fought for the flag, and often won heroic victories for the flag long before he has ever enlisted. To put shortly what seems the essential matter, he has a loyalty long before he…
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Defending the Moderator
I have been watching certain people online criticize pastor Kevin DeYoung for the way he moderated a debate last week at the recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America. The body was debating a motion about whether to retain the current leader of Mission to North America (MNA). At the end of the allotted time for debate, teaching elder Timothy Brindle rose to speak against the motion (watch here). Brindle says that the leader of MNA had supported race-based “affinity” groups in the past, including worship services designed to serve only one racial grouping. Brindle said, “Friends, if the coordinator of MNA believes he’s not safe in space…
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Some Reflections on SBC 2025
Earlier this week I served as a messenger at the 2025 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). I already shared a little bit about what happened with respect to the vote on the Sanchez/Law amendment. Here are some reflections on the rest of the meeting and some further thoughts on the amendment. The President Clint Pressley did a fabulous job as chair. I couldn’t be more grateful for his leadership and the spirit with which he presided over the meeting. I have heard almost universal praise for how he led us. To him, I say well done and congratulations on winning a second term. The Resolutions Andrew Walker…
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A Post-Mortem on the Sanchez/Law Amendment
The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention wrapped-up last night. A strong majority of SBC messengers voted in favor of the Sanchez/Law amendment (61%), but it fell short of the required supermajority (66%). So that effort is now dead. Some take-aways: 1. It is very clear that majorities of messengers at the last three conventions want this amendment. But it is very difficult to get a supermajority to pass a measure when the platform opposes it. The platform mounted strong opposition the last two years. 2. I thought the amendment had a good chance of reaching a supermajority until the platform warned messengers during the debate that the amendment…
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Rivers of Living Water — John 7:25-52
How many people are thirsty spiritually? They know that something is wrong with the world. They know that something is wrong with themselves. They experience a kind of invisible thirst as a result. They need someone or something to slake their spiritual thirst, but they don’t know how to do it. [Listen to the whole sermon at the Spotify or Apple Podcasts links below.]
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The Rising Tension in Jerusalem — John 7:1-24
Have you ever been in a gathering where you should have been welcomed as a friend but were instead spurned as an intruder or even as an enemy? Sometimes that kind of rejection can be justified. If a murderer shows up at the funeral of his victim, he shouldn’t be surprised if the family and other mourners treat him like a pariah and ask him to leave. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m asking if you’ve ever found yourself at a place where you should have been welcomed but weren’t? The rejection was not due to anything wrong you had done. The people there just didn’t like you.…
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Did Aristotle Really Say that Women Are Deformed?
Aristotle has regularly been pilloried by modern writers (and especially feminists) for saying that “The female is as it were a deformed male.”1 New feminist Prudence Allen, for example, argues that this statement from Aristotle among many others renders him morally retrograde in his views on women.2 It may be the case that he is guilty as charged. I do not intend to adjudicate that point. I do wonder, however, if his statement about women being “deformed” has been rightly understood on its own terms. The Greek term translated as “deformed” is peperomenon, and it literally means maimed or mutilated. Figuratively, it denotes something like incapacitated.3 But Aristotle’s usage of…
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To Whom Shall We Go? – John 6:59-71
There is nothing new under the sun. The path to apostasy is sadly well-travelled and ancient. Do you know what it looks like? Do you have the will to avoid it when the temptation comes? [Listen to the whole sermon at the Spotify or Apple Podcasts links below.]
