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Long before Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook, C. S. Lewis understood where cancel culture led. In The Great Divorce, his fictional depiction of heaven and hell, Lewis paints a picture of serial conflict that leads to further and further isolation in the cities of hell. Lewis had no way of knowing how accurate his description would be […]
Thankfully, in recent years the doctrine of God has made a comeback among theologians, and deservedly so. The doctrine of God describes who God is and what he does; it encompasses God’s attributes, like omniscience and omnipotence, as well as the mystery of the Trinity. Yet many Christians do not dwell on these truths because […]
Unbeknownst to many, the Arminian (or Remonstrant) controversy of the early seventeenth century was not the first major early modern dispute about the perennial philosophical and theological questions touching on the relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom. Such an honor must be given to the Roman Catholic dispute leading to the so-called Congregatio De […]
I don’t usually buy devotionals. I find it difficult to stay faithful to one book (apart from the Bible) for a year. But Daily Readings—John Owen, edited by Lee Gatiss, is something entirely different. First, this is the first devotional made up of excerpts of writings by John Owen. It’s a surprising realization, given the […]
Advent and Christmastide beckon Christians to reflect on the first coming of Christ as we long for his return. We are situated in the time between, with a new life and reality defined by the events of Bethlehem and Golgotha and in anticipation of Christ’s parousia. As we think of Christ’s Incarnation in this time […]
I still remember my first experience in a Pentecostal worship service. Growing up in a ‘frozen chosen’ Dutch Reformed church, it was quite the culture shock. I was a Calvinist in exile at a Pentecostal university (a long story). As the music started to grow loud, the lights grew dim, and voices were raised along […]
The battle of ideas is over. We no longer live in an age of reason but an age of narratives. The battle of stories is just beginning. While the church wrestles with the ship’s wheel and tries to navigate this new current, we need faithful pastors to give us our bearings. David Murray proves an […]
The Reality of Idolatry Since Adam, all humans are idolators. We all perpetually break the first commandment by loving creation more than the Creator. As Calvin famously said, “the human heart is a perpetual idol factory” (Institutes I.11.8). In some cultures, this looks like offering sacrifices to man-made statues (e.g., Hindu-influenced India). In other cultures, […]
I find Jordan Peterson’s philosophy of life to be like eating a garden salad for dinner. A salad is refreshing and healthy, I keep coming back for more, but ultimately it does not sate my hunger for long. I’ve consumed a fair bit of Jordan Peterson’s thought and found it, in many ways, to satisfy […]
“Who knows what true loneliness is?” Joseph Conrad famously said. “Not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask.”[1] At first sight, loneliness seems easy to define. During the pandemic, a wave of concerns arose on behalf of people who suddenly found themselves isolated, especially the elderly and […]
While ministry burnout is nothing new, the past few years of pandemic and political turmoil have exacerbated burnout to alarming levels. Both pastors and lay leaders are exhausted from leading confused congregations through the crucible of the past few years. Tired, tattered, and torn, there is a great temptation to step away from the heavy […]
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 […]