Just in time to catch the cresting wave of our secular culture’s anti-family crusade, Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, chides Christians for championing the family. He’s not the only one. In the 80’s and 90’s, evangelicals perceived the family as under cultural and legal assault: Continue reading

We live in unprecedented times of sexual chaos and apostasy. Sexual depravity has infected the world since the fall of humanity, but today we witness not just the wholesale abandonment of creational sexual norms but also the extensive theoretical justification of that abandonment. Modern man wants his sexual depravity and is willing to invent a Continue reading

This was one of the worst years for movies in recent memory. A couple of the movies on the list below would not have appeared on my top 25 list for previous years. There were, however, a few notable exceptions. Paddington 2 was every bit as good as the original, which was exceptional, and The Continue reading

To Jeffery J. Ventrella, Resistance Theologian One day a worm that had been burrowing into the forehead of a medieval Mother Superior fell out as she bent over. Believing that all human suffering is God’s will, she reinserted the worm into her forehead.[1] She was committed to the pervasive, masochistic, and evil theology of resignation Continue reading

Political conservatives are interested in government. One of conservatism’s chief distinctives is commitment to small government: restoring states’ rights, reducing taxes, and deregulating business, for example. Conservatives deplore ever-expanding government intrusion into citizens’ lives. They stand for the Constitution, largely because our Founders believed in limited government. Jesus Christ, too, is interested in government. We Continue reading

This Advent and Christmas season we celebrate the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Incarnation literally denotes enfleshment. The eternal Son of God assumed humanity as a babe in Bethlehem in order to grow to adulthood and die for the sins of the world. This death and subsequent resurrection, the source of our salvation, presuppose Continue reading

Humanism has infested the evangelical church. One of its chief traits is antinomianism, abandoning God’s written law. Conceptually, antinomianism begins with denying the Bible’s inerrancy. Francis A. Schaeffer called biblical inerrancy the“watershed” issue among evangelicals.[1] It divides true evangelicals from pretenders. More and more, evangelical seminaries are denying or not insisting on an error-free Bible. Continue reading

You might think that the last place you’d find humanism is in the church. But you’d be wrong. As early as the 2nd century, some of the church fathers wanted to make Christianity respectable to the wider, unbelieving society. They created a synthesis between the Christian Faith and ancient Greek philosophy.[1] Greek philosophy was likely the Continue reading

Evangelicals tend to be mimics. The surrounding apostate culture invents a trend, and evangelicals eventually adopt it, usually decorating it with a pious veneer. This is the case with the current widespread marginalization of and assault on marriage. Some moderns argue that ours is the best of times (or at least an improving time) for Continue reading

If you wonder why too many evangelicals are caving in to same-sex “marriage,” or “attraction,” surrogacy, “gender fluidity,” and transgenderism, part of the fault lies in the DNA of evangelicalism itself. Evangelicals champion of the biblical evangel, the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead so that sinners Continue reading

When Jesus cautioned his disciples not to be anxious over earthly provision but to seek first God’s kingdom, since the Father supplies their every need (Mt. 6:24–34), he was laying out God’s priority for his followers’ overarching life commitment. Loving God in the totality of our being is the first great commandment (Mk. 12:28–32). The Continue reading

Religiosity is not religion, and piety untethered to the Bible, wafting to the heavens for both God and man to admire, is not true piety. It is saccharine piety, a sickly sweet religiosity that impresses the sentimentally superficial but earns the scorn of the godly and, more significantly, of God himself. It is a mark Continue reading

With the increasing polarization and acrimony of American politics on stunning display in the Kavanaugh confirmation comes the understandable complaint that there’s no longer any middle ground between the two major parties. This observation is correct but usually not for the reasons assumed. It is generally assumed that this loss of middle ground is the Continue reading

The short answer is “no,” or “neither,” but this answer demands elaboration if it’s not to mislead. Pastor Tim Keller argues that Christians don’t fit into the present U. S. political party system and marshals reason why. I disagree. Keller and I both embrace Protestantism, one of whose distinctives is the final authority of the Continue reading

Biblical Christians, of all people, should not avoid or tiptoe around the issue of race. Shout it from the housetop without fear or favor: racism is anti-Christian. White supremacy is evil. Leftist identitarianism is evil. The idea that whites are superior to blacks is evil. The idea that whites are “structurally” racist is evil. The Continue reading

  My conversation with Paul Huxley on the meaning of culture and a new Christian is here. Continue reading

2018 Center for Cultural Leadership Symposium, San Francisco, Saturday, November 3   The symposium will be held at a lovely, scenic hotel overlooking San Francisco Bay. (To avoid unwanted press and controversy, we don’t publicly disclose the location. Let’s just say that our sociopolitical views are not in harmony with the predominant views in San Francisco.) Our symposium is Continue reading

You can’t embrace biblical justice without rejecting “social justice”: Continue reading

The Damned Burnt by the Sun   Incendies Animal Kingdom   Indochine   Orphans of the Storm The Long Good Friday   Nosferatu   Cobra Verde Cries and Whispers   Gilda   The Leopard   East-West Three Colors: Blue   Elevator to the Gallows Phoenix   Barry Lyndon   Picnic at Hanging Rock Mephisto   Continue reading

The author is Professor of New Testament & Greek, University of Northwestern—St. Paul Joel McDurmon wrote “A Response to the Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel.” This brief essay makes no effort to address all his concerns but focuses narrowly on one aspect, namely the third point for why he claims that he will Continue reading