Resources from 2016
Fear drives us more than we’d like to admit, and we’re drawn to it in a macabre sort of way—in horror stories, action movies, even news updates. Making up with hype what they lack in data and logic, pundits bully the public into agreeing with them through scare tactics and rhetoric. What would you list […]
Within the heart of the Christian faith is an astounding truth. God—who created and sustains the universe—became incarnate. The immortal and perfect Son of God shared our messy, sin-prone death-ridden lives of flesh and blood; he became human, walked with us, suffered with us, and subjected himself to our temptations. Ultimately, he died for us, […]
The Sublime Sensibility: “The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss” by David Bentley Hart
Some years ago I wrote on what I called “the aesthetic fallacy” in a small book I authored on how to do history. I am not sure if I coined the term, but what I intend by it is this: a fallacious argument that appears compelling because of the aesthetics of presentation, whether merely physical […]
The Angel in the House and the Woman in the Church: “A Woman’s Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World” by Katelyn Beaty
To be honest, as a Christian woman I don’t read Christian books intended for Christian women. I find them to be (often) legalistic in approach to womanhood: focusing on the function of my womanhood (typically translated in terms of mother and a wife) rather than looking at me as a whole person. Surely I am […]
There are all sorts of ways we turn the conversation back to ourselves, especially in this selfie generation. We’ve always been self-obsessed; we just have better gear for it now. We can express ourselves, publicize ourselves, and project our own uniqueness to the rest of the world. We can update our Facebook profile and tweet […]
The term “incarnational ministry,” like “missional” or “Emergent Church,” is used in a wide variety of ways. Sometimes “incarnational ministry” means ministry that crosses cultural barriers to be an embodied presence to people in need. At other times, it’s used to talk about culturally relevant analogies for the gospel. In still other contexts, “incarnational ministry” […]
Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it and furnished it. […]
In the incarnation, we encounter the mystery J. I. Packer writes about in his classic book Knowing God, when he says that this was “the great act of condescension and self-humbling.” God the Son, coequal and coeternal with the Father, submits to the limits of flesh as Mary’s baby boy—and to his young mother, he must […]
The Christmas season is a time for music. It would be difficult to think about the traditions surrounding this time of the year without having the familiar songs echoing in our ears. Unfortunately, a lot of mediocre songs have crept into the repertoire of this holiday season. “Frosty the Snowman” and “I’m Dreaming of a […]
Pop music isn’t my thing, so I never really watched an episode of American Idol—except once, when someone I knew personally landed in the top ten. But even pop-music holdouts like me can’t help seeing the headlines and the highlight videos; the show was a ubiquitous cultural presence. Until it wasn’t. The New York Times […]
Today, we are confronted by an invasion of morality that seeks to define right and wrong, good and evil, and justice and judgment without invoking the concept of sin, the narrative of the Garden of Eden, and the reality of an omniscient God. Books such as Good without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do […]
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Cor. 10:16) […]
For the past year, each issue of Modern Reformation has followed the theme, “The Story of God’s People.” We began by retelling the stories of key characters in the Old Testament, showing how their individual stories pointed forward to the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Then we explored key moments in the life […]
In 1998, 49 percent of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old Americans considered themselves moderate or very religious. By 2014, that number dropped 10 percent. “Yet 80 percent of Americans said they believe in an afterlife in 2014, up from 73 percent in 1972–74,” according to a new study led by Dr. Jean Twenge, which indicates an apparent […]
The great hope of Christians is not that they will go to heaven when they die, but that Jesus will raise them from the dead in an incorruptible body to live with him and the rest of God’s people in the new creation. The physicality of the new creation city that John reveals in Revelation […]
