I once heard an evangelical leader speak out against a certain group with whom we evangelicals have significant disagreements. I happened to have studied this group’s teachings in considerable detail, so I listened very carefully to how he made his case against them. Much of what he said was on target, but at one point […]
I was 15 years old when I stopped believing in a “young earth.” And it happened, of all places, at a fundamentalist Bible camp. I worked there on the kitchen staff, and one of my fellow workers, a college student, was reading Bernard Ramm’s A Christian View of Science and the Scripture, which had only recently been...
A letter to President Bush made public last week, signed by a group of evangelicals, myself included, is getting some attention. The letter encourages our government to work for a two-state solution in Israel.
I am receiving some positive feedback, but also a few angry denunciations. The Palestinian-Israeli situation is notoriously complex, and it is especially...
This past week’s “On Faith” web panel offers a variety of perspectives on the Pope’s recent declaration that the Catholic Church is the “fullest” embodiment of the true church. One of the persons who wrote in to comment on my contribution to that panel quoted Mark Twain’s great line: “Man is the only animal that has the...
There is an interesting article in the latest (July 10) Christian Century about the influence of “prosperity” preaching in Africa. This is an important topic for serious theological reflection. Philip Jenkins and others have been giving us much solid information about the shifting center of gravity in the global church, from the northern to the southern hemisphere....
I heard someone say recently, in connection with whether a Mormon could be president, that John Kennedy had faced similar opposition because of his religious affiliation, but that he overcame the problem with his speech in Houston to a group of Baptist pastors. That speech is often cited as a turning point for Kennedy, but the truth...
A decade or so ago I wrote the piece below for the magazine Reformed Worship, in response to a request that I reflect on patriotic themes and practices in worship. They reprinted it recently. I am pasting it here, in anticipation of July 4 celebrations. It can also be accessed at: http://www.reformedworship.org/magazine/article.cfm?article_id=1689
The Danger of Alien...
I have come to enjoy reading Plain Truth magazine these days. There was a time when I read it with very different expectations. I used to read it at airports, where it was often possible to pick up a free copy. Those were the days when the magazine set forth the views of Herbert W. Armstrong, whose...
I did not contribute anything to “On Faith” (Newsweek/Washington Post) this week. Those of us who serve on that internet panel are given a question each week, and we are expected to provide commentary in response at least once or twice a month. So my not contributing this past week is no big deal.
The truth...
A while back William Safire, in his “On Language” column in the New York Times magazine, commented on the shift from “You’re welcome” to “No problem”
as a response to “Thank you.” Actually, one of the places where I hear the “no problem” locution most often is from restaurant serving persons, where it is...
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