In Southern California—the birthplace of the Calvary Chapel movement and home to multiple “burned-over” districts, where the fire of evangelical zeal consumed (and disappointed) many a newly converted soul—the reformational church has long been having a PR crisis. Small, straitlaced, and unsexy, it lives on the outskirts of the Protestant world, too confessional to be […]
It’s not exactly a revelation to say that racial tension is part of American existence. The fact that the recent deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, Charleena Lyles, and others have elicited such polarizing responses and reactions is evidence of this. The tension isn’t new—the social and legal boundaries separating black and white […]
For the past thirty years, I’ve worked as a professional realist, specializing in the hyper-realist style. My artistic education nurtured my affinity for the paintings produced during the Reformation, but my understanding of the theological developments from that period took somewhat longer to develop. Like most Bible-believing Christians in our day, I began my spiritual […]
It is now over a decade since Collin Hansen coined the term “young, restless, and Reformed” (YRR) to characterize a rising generation of Christians who had rediscovered the vitality of the central doctrines of the Reformation: Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, and so on. What Hansen (then a journalist with Christianity Today) had noticed […]
“Feelings, nothings more than feelings,” so sang Perry Como. For my wife’s sake, I’ll throw in the Bees Gees as well: “It’s just emotion that’s taken me over.” We could go on—and on. In our pop culture, emotions are really nothing more than strong feelings we basically cannot control. On the other hand, they are […]
I have been searching for joy my entire life, and I believe I am not alone. If pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) is correct, then we are all on the same quest. The reason is because we were created for joy. Yet the quest to find it—that is, true spiritual happiness—often leads us to […]
It was my turn to preach in chapel. I was given John 11:1–44 at the beginning of the semester, and since, in God’s providence, it was just two days after my father finally died after a long year of tremendous suffering, we held a memorial service in conjunction with chapel that day. I had long […]
Do you sometimes leave a movie feeling totally bowled over—only to find that the next day you can’t quite explain why you thought it was so great? Have you ever dragged friends and family to a film you loved, and then suddenly realized with horror that it wasn’t appropriate or worthwhile? If so, then you’ve […]
In the Nicene Creed, the Christian church confesses that the Second Person of the Godhead is not a creature made by God but the eternally begotten Son of God. The creed affirms the church’s belief “in the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very […]
Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia by John Dunlop Crossway, 2017 208 pages (paperback), $18.99 In August 2017, country music legend Glen Campbell died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. Diagnosed in late 2010, Campbell subsequently commenced his “Goodbye Tour” with a film crew in tow. Their footage became the documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be […]
Divine Will and Human Choice: Freedom, Contingency, and Necessity in Early Modern Reformed Thought by Richard A. Muller Baker Academic, 2017 336 pages (hardcover), $45.00 For the past decade, there has been an ongoing debate tucked away in academic journals and monographs concerning how Reformed theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries understood human freedom […]
It’s not uncommon to hear comments such as “Don’t suppress your feelings—get in touch with them.” And a popular modern theory is “If it feels good, it must be right—do it!” Identity issues today are argued based on feelings—that is, what you feel about yourself determines your identity. One reason people check their smartphone hundreds […]
It is one of the inevitable facts of life that at some point you’ll find yourself disagreeing with a friend, family member, authority figure, or institution. How you disagree is often more important than the actual disagreement itself. Unfortunately, too many of our disagreements have become disagreeable. Although we may want to blame all this […]
