Not contentedness but more power; not peace but war; not virtue but fitness.” So wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in his Der Antichrist. For most Christians, such a bold assertion will sit ill at ease for them, to understate the matter. This push for power by means of might and combat is not easy to marry with […]
Benjamin Franklin is famous for saying, among many other things, that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. If he were writing today, I suspect he might want to alter one of those terms—not so much death and taxes, but debt and taxes. Debt has become as much a part of our […]
by Herman Bavinck translated by Gregory Parker Jr. This essay was originally published in 1892 by Herman Bavinck in the yearbook of the Dutch Youth Association (Nederlandsch Jongelings-Verbond) as “Hoofd en Hart” (“Head and Heart”).(1) Formed in Amsterdam in 1853 as a result of the Réviel,(2) this association of young males between eighteen and thirty-five […]
There’s this town I know that’s got great public spirit. Boy Scouts is a big deal. The country clubs are nice. The Rotary Club owns the town, they say, and the Kiwanis runs it. The United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Cathedral, and the big Presbyterian Church are full on Christmas and Easter. The Republicans and […]
On Power He was a man who had stumbled into a little bit of power and seized it with both hands. She’d known that within the first few hours of his arrival, when he’d chosen the best room and gathered up the warmest blankets for his bed, when he’d taken all the pillows in the […]
As South Africa’s second-largest metropolis (after Johannesburg), Cape Town not only has a rich history but is also a melting pot of scenic views, cuisines, and skin colors. She boasts incredible beauty but also thrombotic veins of prejudice and inequality, which are still fed by the painful legacy of the failed social experiment of racial […]
Titles: Theologians and Contract Law: The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune (ca. 1500–1650)By Wim Decock Lutheran Theology and Contract Law in Early Modern Germany (ca. 1520–1720)By Paulo Astorri The two intimidating looking studies that form the basis of this review essay might not appear to be promising territory for students of Reformation theology. They […]
Duplex Regnum Christi: Christ’s Twofold Kingdom in Reformed TheologyBy Jonathon D. BeekeBrill, 2020272 pages (paperback), $64.00 As Christians who identify with the Reformation traditions have wrestled with Christian social responsibility and the Christian’s place in the public square, few topics have generated more controversy than the nature of Christ’s rule and kingdom. For readers interested […]
The Same God Who Works All Things: Inseparable Operations in Trinitarian TheologyBy Adonis ViduEerdmans, 2021368 pages (hardback), $50.00 Adonis Vidu endeavors to offer a fully orbed definition and defense of the inseparable operations of the Triune God. The doctrine of inseparable operations has been a steadfast rule in Trinitarian theology since the patristic period with […]
Liberty for All: Defending Everyone’s Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic AgeAndrew T. WalkerBrazos Press, 2021267 pages (paperback), $19.99 The past decade has been marked by seismic shifts in American political opinion. Remarkably, however, most Americans, despite many recent high-profile court battles, still support religious liberty—at least insofar as they do not want their sincerely held […]
In 1994, Klaus Schmidt discovered a temple in southwestern Anatolia (Turkey) that dates back almost 10,000 years—the earliest Neolithic period, just after the last ice age. As usual, he said, “First comes the temple, then the city.” Human beings are innately religious. We know this from Scripture, of course. In Romans 1, Paul explains that […]
