When will the blogging end? Friends over at Front Porch Republic have launched a new site that may not be an obvious resource for confessional Presbyterians. But it should because the Bible does not tell us directly how to be conservative. Yes, Scripture provides lots of teaching that adds up to conservatism. But conservatism’s essential features are by no means obvious when the Bible apparently inspires more “radical” or “red letter” Christians than believers who take situatedness and embodiment seriously. Continue reading “Front Porch Republic”
Author: D. G. Hart
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P&W and God's Impending Judgment
From the NTJ, July 1997 (1.3)
We are not given to providential readings of United States’ history. Our editorial policy vehemently rejects the notion that America has a special place in God’s plan, or even that it was and should be a Christian nation. From our reading of the Bible only one nation ever existed as God’s chosen one, and that was Israel, the Old Testament church.Nor do we think it possible to tell what God is up to in human history. We know the broad outlines of the story, which is the movement from creation, the fall, and redemption (where we now are) to consummation. But how we get there apart from some special revelation to instruct us is anybody’s guess.
Having said all that, if we were to conclude that God was judging the United States through abortion, the AIDS epidemic and general lawlessness, would it be possible to say the cause of such punishment was the American church’s use of praise songs, overheads, hand held mikes and electric guitars in worship? After all, almost every time God punished Israel it was because God’s people was engaging in idolatry. So why is it that the Christians most prone to providential readings of current affairs are also the ones most comfortable with rock ‘n roll in public worship?
As the punch line has it to a joke observing that there are twenty-four hours in a day and twenty-four bottles in a case of beer: any connection?
I Thought It Was Black History Month
Turns out I’m wrong again. Redeemer NYC is again on the cutting edge, going against the grain by making February Arts Month.Â
You can read more about it here (not to mention the female – ahem – Director of Arts Ministry – double ahem). Just when I was set to watch Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, now I learn I should have rented Pollock.Â
Darn, redeeming culture is so tricky.
Why is Your Face Any More Attractive?
Our good friend over at Heidelblog, Scott Clark, has some sage words for aspiring preachers. But on one of his points Scott loses me. He writes:
Keep your head up (and leave the manuscript at home). No one in the congregation, except your mother, cares to see the top of your head. If you bring a ms to the pulpit and begin reading it your head will drop. We will not see your eyes but only the top of your head. No one talks to other people while staring at one’s feet. This is a terrible communication strategy. People are trained by television news readers and presidents and pundits to have someone delivering important information by looking them straight in the eye. You have the most important information in the world to deliver! Why would you do it whilst looking down at a piece of paper? Who will listen to the top of your head. Get your head up young man! Look people in the eye. If what you have to say is so complicated that you can’t say paraphrase it clearly whilst looking people in the face, it’s too complicated for a sermon. . . . Simplify your notes. Simplify your sermon. Keep your head up.
Insufficient Reasons
The fanfare among evangelical Presbyterians for Tim Keller’s book was deafening. So we decided to see what someone from the audience for whom Keller wrote – a non-believer – would think of Keller’s arguments. After all, are people who already believe really the best to judge a book designed to persuade those who don’t? As the reviewer, the Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania explains, the editors asked for this review. We had no idea what Professor Kuklick would write.
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Dutton, 2008. 296 pp.
The editors of the NTJ asked me to review this book. Readers have heralded it, they said, as a sophisticated body blow to secularism, but maybe the author is only talking to the already converted. What did I think? Continue reading “Insufficient Reasons”
Paleo- and Neo-Reformed
We didn’t ask for this but when a respected Protestant scholar invokes the category of Neo-Reformed (which implies a Paleo version), members of the Old Life Theological Society take the bait with relish (tabasco would help).
In a blog that has gotten far more attention than it likely deserves, Scot McKnight complains about the efforts of the Neo-Reformed to capture evangelicalism. He faults them for being traditionalist as opposed to following the Bible, accuses them of displaying fundamentalist belligerency as opposed to evangelical niceness, and fears they aim to take over evangelicalism and exclude the non-Reformed as opposed to just getting along. Continue reading “Paleo- and Neo-Reformed”
NTJ: October 2006 Vol. 10 No. 4
Contents
- Allen E. Rich Growth Without Growing Up
- Bryan A. Pieters The Reformed Faith & Its Latest Substitute
- Townsend P. Levitt Big Sky Diarist: Worship Disenchanted
- 39 Alexander Hall
- Second Hand Smoke
- Index of Articles from Volumes 1-10
Sabbath, Psalms and Single Malt: The NTJ
Why are you reading yet another venture in Reformed desktop publishing (aside from the fact that we can’t afford a more substantial publication)? After all, confessional Presbyterians do not lack for periodicals that defend sound theology and spot bad imitations. There are many publications that print a steady diet of articles reflecting sound biblical and doctrinal insight, from denominational magazines to theological journals. Yet few, if any of these periodicals, pay close attention to the God-ordained means of grace as well as the habits and sensibilities that articulate, cultivate and reinforce orthodoxy. That is, few publications give proper heed to the embodiment of the Reformed faith, contenting themselves with the propositional and didactic elements of Presbyterian theology while ignoring the visible expression of Presbyterian convictions. Continue reading “Sabbath, Psalms and Single Malt: The NTJ”
Cornelius Van Til
John Muether talks with the Christ the Center panel about his book Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman, the latest volume in the American Reformed Biography series published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing. Professor Muether discusses various aspects of the life and thought of Van Til, including his involvement in the so-called Clark/Van Til controversy, his critical analysis of Karl Barth, his interaction with his Christian Reformed Church critics, and his involvement with the founding and first several decades of existence of Westminster Theological Seminary and the OPC. Like the book, our conversation with Professor Muether will leave the listener longing to hear more.
You can listen to the interview here.
Old Life 