In 1533, Philip Melanchthon gave a speech entitled “On the Miseries of Teachers.” Melanchthon, a Reformer well-versed in educational philosophy and honored by his contemporaries with the title of “Praeceptor Germaniae” (the Teacher of Germany), bemoaned the attitude of students: “they insult us, they wrinkle their noses, they make faces behind our backs when we […]
Wednesday, 16 November, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
*** 1517 Publishing | 2021 | 224 pages (paperback) | $21.85 Magnus Persson, a successful pastor in the charismatic church for many years, is now a minister in the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church. How did that happen? In Reclaiming the Reformation, Persson answers that question en route to offering a larger call to reformational Christianity. […]
Tuesday, 01 November, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
We Christians love to talk about ideas and their consequences. Take R.C. Sproul’s The Consequences of Ideas. Or Richard Weaver’s 1948 classic Ideas Have Consequences, which has remained quite popular among conservative Christians ever since its publication. As one who was a high school history teacher for many years, I absolutely love the history of […]
Wednesday, 12 October, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
As Romans 8 builds to the crescendo that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39), Paul inserts a jarring Old Testament quotation: “for your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Ps. 44:22). […]
Wednesday, 14 September, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
Why is Christianity true? Considering the language frequently used to describe what it means to be Christian, we might conclude that it is true because I believe it is true. I asked Jesus into my heart. I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. I made Jesus Lord of my life. I believe in Jesus with […]
Friday, 08 July, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
“I pledge allegiance.” Three words that immediately bring to mind the American flag and that daily classroom ritual from kindergarten through twelfth grade. When my youngest sister started kindergarten, I remember her coming home the first week and asking the family at the dinner table if we all knew “the incredible agents.” We were befuddled. […]
Friday, 10 June, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
Yet another round of social commentary has been unleashed in the aftermath of Lia Thomas’ recent victory at the NCAA swimming nationals. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Lia is a biological male, who, until last year, swam on the men’s team at Penn. But this year, swimming in the female category as […]
Wednesday, 04 May, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
What is a trickster tale? According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “the trickster-tale genre of folklore appears in some form in every culture” and usually features “a protagonist (often an anthropomorphized animal) who has magical powers and who is characterized as a compendium of opposites.” The trickster-hero frequently “serves as a sort of folkloric scapegoat onto which […]
Wednesday, 13 April, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
There is a nostalgic allure associated with the family farm and home industry of yesteryear, where once upon a time families labored together towards a common goal, with achievements physically manifested in the world; a field plowed, a fence mended, a crop harvested. It’s easy to romanticize this pre-industrial norm, overlooking its challenges and difficulties: […]
Friday, 11 March, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
*** Just and Sinner Publications | 2021 | 241 pages (paperback) | $24.00 With his Union with Christ, Jordan Cooper adds a second publication to his “Contemporary Protestant Scholastic Theology” series. This publication is projected to be volume six in the overall series, by which Cooper is attempting to rejuvenate seventeenth-century Lutheran Scholasticism, a high […]
Tuesday, 01 March, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
“To me, everything that is is magical and mysterious,” explains Byung-Chul Han in a recent interview. He continues, “I would say that I am not a romantic, but a realist who perceives the world the way it is. It simply consists of magic and mystery.” Intriguing words from a philosopher who has written numerous precise […]
Friday, 11 February, 2022 by Joshua Pauling
What are bodies for? Why do we have bodies? John Kleinig sets out to answer such simple, yet profound, questions in his recent book Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body. As Kleinig puts it, such an inquiry “is not a theoretical question for idle speculation, something for philosophers to consider. It is a […]
Friday, 14 January, 2022 by Joshua Pauling