Sunni Muslims, who are traditionalists of some sort, usually cite both the Koran and sunna as their sources of authority. The Koran is their scriptural text and sunna a term meaning “tradition.” The latter refers to the tradition established by Mohammed and the early generations of Muslims. Tradition is anything that’s recorded about what Mohammed […]
At the time of the Babylonian exile, the people of Israel asked, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" (Ps. 137:4). This question is still relevant for the church today, because we too are "sojourners and exiles" on the earth (1 Pet. 2:11). God clearly wants his pilgrim people to be […]
Most of the worship music we refer to as “contemporary” has been influenced by rock ‘n’ roll. As a form of art, the meaning of this style of music involves a whole set of assumptions and ideals, something Ken Myers has described as the “rock myth.” Myers explains, “The essence of that myth was that […]
Like a diet promoter who gains fame by promising better results with fewer restrictions, Christian Smith has produced a stir in the evangelical publishing world by offering an understanding of scriptural authority that is supposedly both easier to maintain and more orthodox. In his book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly […]
Sealed inside an air-conditioned bubble, far from the eavesdropping ears of society at large, Bangkok's taxi drivers will give you their uninhibited opinion on just about anything. Politics. Religion. Education. The monarchy. Their hometown. How to manage multiple wives in different cities. Of course, not all of them are chatty, and I have many times […]
"Who is my neighbor?" the rich young ruler asked Jesus. The query was an attempt to deflect responsibility. Of course, I have a responsibility for my family, kinsmen, and fellow Jews, but surely not for the outcasts, the morally unclean, or the Gentile. No loophole, Jesus replied. Your neighbor is the one right under your […]
Bill Nikides has spent much of his adult life working in the Muslim world, engaging cultures and worldviews in North Africa, Egypt, the Middle East, and in Central, South, and East Asia. Regarded as a leading expert in Muslim ministry, specifically on Insider Movements and their impact on cultures, he is director of i2 Ministries […]
Editor’s note: Half Devil, Half Child is a documentary on “born-again Islam” with the simple goal of setting Americans face to face with Bangladeshis who understand firsthand the danger of the Insider missions practices being imported from the West. The title of the film is taken from a line in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “White Man’s […]
On a cold November day in 1095, Pope Urban II roused a Christendom plagued by internal wars to take up the cause of holy war against Islam. "If you must have blood," he exhorted, "bathe in the blood of infidels." With the conversion of Emperor Constantine in the early fourth century, Christian leaders had gone […]
Despite the existence in print of odd genres like Young Adult Fiction, Manga, or Online Harry Potter Fan Fiction, I suggest that perhaps the strangest literary genre today is something I call "Dramatic Clergy Fiction." Impossible, you say, that such literature could yield a profit in today's economy. Yet recent novels set in pastoral-sounding towns […]
Good books that are well written are an increasing rarity these days. That is why it is always a pleasure to find a new volume from the pen of Marilynne Robinson, who is not only a novelist of distinction but also a careful and stylish essayist. In Absence of Mind she turns her attention to […]
It is sometimes a peculiar pitfall of Reformed preaching to treat it as a mechanical process through which the Spirit of God operates, rather than as a dynamic relationship of dependence upon a divine person. John Owen once remarked that if we removed the person and work of the Holy Spirit, we may as well […]
