The more committed you are to a high view of the church (teaching, worship, and government), the less concerned you are about political causes and cultural transformation. This law came back to me after reading a post that commended an article by John Frame, who was yet again singling out Mike Horton. At one point,… Read More→
In my efforts to try to place Benedict XVI within contemporary Roman Catholic thought, I have been also trying to get a read on the Communio theologians and their affinities with Radical Orthodoxy. What apparently unites these different schools of theology is a fundamental critique of modernity. In her chapter on “Modernity and the Politics… Read More→
Ken Myers’ recent visit to Hillsdale College to deliver lectures on Music and the Great Tradition, has me thinking about the relationship between Christ and culture, or at least the way some Christians conceive of it. Ken persuaded me of the importance of music in the created order, why harmonic structures parallel mathematical forms, why… Read More→
For all of those who think that two-kingdoms theology overly spiritualizes the Christian life, Martin Luther to the rescue: Commenting on Mark 7:33 (“And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue.”) He singles out these two organs, ear and tongue, because… Read More→
If anyone wants evidence of the expanding meaning of redemption to the point of obscuring “the only redeemer of God’s elect,” take a look at Christianity Today’s list of 2012′s most redeeming movies: Our annual Most Redeeming list . . . represents the year’s best movies that include stories of redemption. Several feature characters who… Read More→
If I were a devout Muslim or even a lukewarm agnostic for the past few days, I certainly would have observed oddities that Christians in the U.S. take for granted as normal. I am thinking of the oddity of hearing Dean Martin or Nat King Cole or Johnny Mathis or Tony Bennett crooning lines like… Read More→
In arguably his most important book, The Unsettling of America, Wendell Berry writes the following about the Amish (in ways that neo-Calvinists might find instructive and inspirational): First, the Amish communities are, at their center, religious. They are bound together not just by various worldly necessities, but by spiritual authority. . . Whereas most contemporary… Read More→
Is this the tone or posture that characterizes those Reformed Protestants who insist that the only genuine Christianity is the one that is fully engaged with this world, 24/7? For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands,… Read More→
Readers may be encouraged to learn that Dr. K. has recanted somewhat of his repeated attempts to associate the defenders of 2k with the views of Misty Irons on gay marriage. The exacts words are: Having re-read both my original blog post and the ensuing relevant comments, I publicly regret insinuating that some advocates of… Read More→
Christians Assimilated (but compromised?)
A terrific book review, now a little long in the tooth, of two books on Europe and its immigrant populations is worth pondering for a variety of reasons but it got me thinking specifically about the assimilation of Christians in a secular republic like the United States. Here is a striking passage: PEOPLE WHO ASK… Read More→