We must not tell chiefly of people, of their faith as an attracting example and of their sins as a repelling example, but we must tell of the revelation of the grace of God in Christ." (1) Author of the remarkably useful four-volume set, Promise and Deliverance (Paidea Press), S. G. De Graaf in the […]
In a forum on the evangelical mind — which Professor Mark Noll of Wheaton College says is virtually nonexistent — Christianity Today magazine (August 14, 1995) enlists Noll and three other intellectual heavyweights to tell the world what ails conservative Christianity in the United States. The disconcerting verdict is that — despite century-old schools like […]
I'm not wont to read letters to editors. Time, I suppose, or a perceived lack thereof. Or perhaps it's outrage. All the posturing and petty outrage of our age shows up there. But I did read one letter in a religious periodical recently. It was from a science department chairman in a Christian college whom […]
Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation; biblical hermeneutics is the art and science of interpreting the Bible. At the time of the Reformation, debates over interpretation played an enormously important role. These were debates over interpretation, not just over interpretations. In other words, the Reformers disagreed with their opponents not only over what […]
I can really relate to Cracker's new song, "I Hate My Generation." A couple of decades ago, most songs were overly optimistic, "All you need is love," "What the world needs now is love, sweet love," etc. But today, a refreshing pessimism abounds in popular music; refreshing not because pessimism is a cherished virtue in […]
The synthesis of Kantian philosophy with modern scientific reasoning, among other factors, has contributed to the evolution of an historical-critical culture. Housed in virtually all of the world's major universities (and many of the minor ones as well) and possessing a "golden calf" method of biblical evaluation which no one dare challenge, historical criticism itself […]
Whenever discussions of the authority and reliability of the Bible arise, questions of history and historicity take center stage. There is nothing surprising in this, for Christianity is by its very nature a historical religion. As contemporary German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg stresses, "The Christian religion exists, in distinction from other belief systems, by virtue of […]
