Based on a talk delivered to the annual conference of the Center for Cultural Leadership in San Francisco, California, November 7, 2009 Scripture is God’s scepter … the instrument of his government. J. I. Packer[1] We read in Psalm 119:105 that God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our [...]
Month: October 2012
The Cultural Paradigm of the Democratic Party
Introductory remarks at the political symposium sponsored by the Center for Cultural Leadership in Saratoga, California, October 27, 2012 I want to start with a quote from Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention this past August: This Republican narrative — this alternative universe … says that every one of us in this room who amounts to [...]
Don’t Sell Short Your Personal Relationship with Jesus Christ
In “Beware of Under-Realized Soteriologies,” I took to task Mark Galli of Christianity Today and others for arguing that we shouldn’t expect to be transformed too much by the Gospel in this pre-consumate age, since most Gospel transformation awaits the eschaton. Gerald Heistand of The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology argues, from another angle, [...]
An Evangelical Predicament: Two Kinds of Sinners
The great division within humanity is not sexual, economic, racial, or social — but religious. The great divide is captured by expressions like the City of God versus the City of Man (Augustine), covenant-keepers versus covenant-breakers (Cornelius Van Til), and by more explicitly Biblical terms like saved versus unsaved (Ac. 16:30) and Christians versus non-Christians [...]
Apostasy Begins in the Heart
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart . . . Deuteronomy 6:6 Few Biblical words are more frequently mis-defined and misunderstood in the modern church than the word heart. It is usually understood as emotion. When evangelical ministers declare, “We believe in heart-felt religion at this church,” what [...]
What Is the Gospel?
So here is the problem. Man is a guilty sinner, God is a holy God. How can the two be brought together? The answer is the cross of Christ. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross[1] “God was in Christ,” writes Paul to the church at Corinth, “reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing [counting] their trespasses [...]
That Good Old-Fashioned Modernism
In The Courage to be Protestant, David Wells observes that (post)modern “post-conservative” evangelicals (like Roger Olsen) really aren’t that different theologically from the old Protestant liberals (also called “modernists” at the time). In an extended CCL interview published in “Christian Culture,” I posed this question to John M. Frame, and his answer, in essence, is [...]
