Category: Theology and Practice
On Fearing Eternity and Being at Home on Earth
By Gary Benton My hands gripped the pew before me so tightly they ached, as if caught in an over-wrought handshake. I drew in quick, sharp breaths. Though I was careful to keep my head still, my eyes darted wildly...
A Review of the Missouri Presbytery’s Statement on “Homosexuality and the Gospel of Grace”
By Steven Wedgeworth The Presbyterian Church in America’s annual General Assembly is quickly approaching, and at least 8 of the overtures that have been submitted concern sexual identity and LGBT ministry in the church. There is also an overture to...
On Being a Church for the Weak
By Matthew LaPine “How many BTU’s you rocking?” my co-worker ribbed on my boss’s deck. For a mid-2007 loan officer success was partly measured in British Thermal Units (the performance measure for gas grilling). The grill, the plasma, and the...
Responding to Dr. Wayne Grudem on In Vitro Fertilization
Within the pantheon of ‘difficult issues to disagree upon,’ nothing ranks higher than in vitro fertilization. Or so I have concluded recently, anyway. Opposing gay marriage means one will probably get tarred as a bigot, and dismissed and derided accordingly—which...
Sex and the Supremacy of Technique
Last week’s essay from Matthew Lee Anderson and Andrew Walker about evangelicals and in vitro fertilization makes an argument worth discussing: God intends that sex and procreation should not be separated from each other. It made me think of the...
The Church’s One Foundation and the Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral
By Joshua Heavin Upon initially hearing there was a fire at Cathédrale Notre-Dame, I assumed that perhaps some light smoke damage would be incurred; such a titanic vessel must be unsinkable, and our sophisticated modern technology will undoubtedly prevent any...
The End of Christendom: Notes on the Burning of Notre Dame
Rod Dreher is fond of quoting a line from Benedict XVI who—forgive my paraphrasing—has said that the church’s two most powerful evangelistic tools are her art and her saints. Though I have never been fully outside the church, even during...
Natural Law and the Prospects of Persuasion
By James Clark When American evangelicals began to earnestly engage in conventional politics in the 1950s, a problem emerged. As David L. Weeks put it in a 2001 article, “Evangelicals have never developed a coherent and compelling political philosophy. Instead,...
Desire, Duty, and Dynamite
As it becomes clearer and clearer that global climate change is dangerous and will require enormous efforts to protect human lives from its effects, the debate about how our individual choices and corporate efforts affect us has only gotten sharper....
Pragmatism and the Practice of Theology
By Joshua Heavin Several decades ago, missiologist Lesslie Newbigin wrote about our impulse towards pragmatism in the post-Christendom West: In discussions about the contemporary mission of the Church it is often said that the Church ought to address itself to...