• Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    Blue Like Blue States

    Don Miller’s blockbuster book Blue Like Jazz has influenced a significant number of a whole generation of young Christians across this country. I can say that the book has definitely made an impact on many of the students at the college where I teach. Mark Coppenger delivered an address at Southern Seminary recently in which he reviewed Don Miller’s book. The audio of the review is witty and insightful and worth the time to listen to. But if you don’t have the time for the audio, you can now read it. The Baptist Press has run a print version of the review titled “Blue Like Jazz & Berri Blue Jell-O.”…

  • Culture,  Politics

    Botched Abortions You Haven’t Heard About

    The vaunted “safe, legal, and rare” abortions that we’ve heard so much about may be legal, but they are hardly rare, and in the following story are not safe either (that is, safe for the mother, since they are never safe for the baby). The F.D.A. has now received reports that six women in the United States died after taking RU-486, or Mifeprex. A seventh died in Canada. The two most recent deaths and two of the previous four underwent their procedures at Planned Parenthood clinics, a spokeswoman said . . . Since reporting drug side effects is voluntary in the United States, it is possible that more women have…

  • Culture,  Theology/Bible

    Bart Ehrman on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”

    Bart Ehrman has been making the media rounds with the publication of his new book Misquoting Jesus. Recently, he promoted his book on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (click here and scroll down to “Bart Ehrman” to stream the video). (HT: Daniel Streett) I reviewed Misquoting Jesus on this blog a couple of months ago. In that review I made the observation that Ehrman often mixes in higher critical conjectures that do not have anything to do with the manuscript tradition per se. This serves his polemical purpose of undermining the reliability of the Bible, but it does not help the lay reader who is being introduced to the…

  • Theology/Bible

    Semper Reformanda

    As a Southern Baptist, I really appreciate the sentiments expressed in Douglas Baker’s Baptist Press essay, “Semper Reformanda: more than a phrase.” His basic contention is that the Southern Baptist conservative resurgence will have been for naught if a continuing reformation does not ensue. He writes: The affluence and leisure of modern church life make it all the more difficult to evangelize and disciple people who find Broadway more exciting than the Bible. The logic proceeds that if people are still attending Broadway shows and movies, then the church had better mimic such venues or else the sanctuary of today will be the museum of tomorrow. To assuage this fear,…

  • Politics

    Democrats Wind-up To Impeach Bush

    Today’s New York Times confirms what I posted yesterday. Democrats are mobilizing to impeach President Bush should they win control of congress this year. Here’s a snippet: Last year, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the panel when it weighed proceedings against President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, proposed an initial inquiry into a censure or impeachment of Mr. Bush over the war. So far, the Conyers proposal has attracted support from about two dozen of the chamber’s 201 Democrats. ImpeachPAC, a grass-roots group based in New York City that grew out of the last election, is agitating…

  • Politics

    Bush To Be Impeached?

    An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal claims that the Democrats intend to impeach President Bush if they win congressional majorities in the elections this Fall. Their intention to do so was amplified by Senator Russ Feingold’s attempt this week to have President Bush censured: In fact, our guess is that censure would be the least of it. The real debate in Democratic circles would be whether to pass articles of impeachment. Whether such an inevitable attempt succeeds would depend on Mr. Bush’s approval rating, and especially on whether Democrats could use their subpoena power as committee chairs to conjure up something they could flog to a receptive media as…

  • Culture,  Music,  Personal,  Politics,  Theology/Bible

    Scratching My Head at Derek Webb

    I love Derek Webb. I first started listening to his music in 1994 when I was in college and when he was in Caedmon’s Call. I will never forget the first time I saw Derek perform live with Caedmon’s (circa 1995). It was at Tulane University in New Orleans, and I and the other hundred or so people were mesmerized for the entire concert. When I heard Derek sing and play “Bus Driver” that night, he became my favorite of the group. It was one of the best shows I’d ever been to. Caedmon’s Call was supposed to be playing Christian music, but it didn’t sound like any of the…

  • Book Reviews,  Theology/Bible

    “Blue Like Sad”: Robbie Sagers on Don Miller’s New Book

    My friend and fellow traveler Robbie Sagers has written an excellent review of Don Miller’s new book To Own a Dragon. Sagers writes the review for the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (JBMW), but you can read it now on the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s website. Miller’s widely acclaimed book Blue Like Jazz left me wondering about the effects of Miller’s dysfunctional relationship with his father. According to Sagers, this book delves deeply into that subject. I haven’t read the book yet, but Sager’s essay has definitely piqued my interest. When Sagers isn’t out late at night getting folks lost in Harlem, he proves to be an…

  • Theology/Bible

    Could Carl Henry Be Wrong?

    I was struck by something that I read today in Carl F. H. Henry’s watershed work The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947). Fundamentalism is agreed on the main doctrines of God, of creation, of anthropology, of soteriology, and of eschatology in its main peaks (p. 61). What impressed me about Henry’s observation here is that, sadly, it is no longer true. The consensus that used to characterize American evangelicalism no longer exists. One can no longer claim unity among evangelicals on central issues. Current debates among evangelicals about open theism and the adequacy of the penal substitution model of the atonement demonstrate that the old, broad consensus on the…

  • Culture

    Clubbing Clooney

    Peggy Noonan has a penchant for rhetoric, and sometimes she can be downright harsh. You should check out her piece on George Clooney’s acceptance speech at last Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, “Boy in a Bubble: What George Clooney doesn’t know about life.” Here’s a devastating snippet: George Clooney is Hollywood now. He is charming and beautiful and cool, but he is not Orson Welles . . . Orson Welles was an artist. George Clooney is a fellow who read an article and now wants to tell us the truth, if we can handle it. The Missional Baptist Blog thinks I was pretty harsh in my critique of George Clooney in my…