If you need a reason for why a fair portion of conservative voters were disenchanted enough with the Republican Establishment to head over to Donald Trump's place, take a look at the final paragraph of David Frum's cover essay in the September issue of Commentary, “Is It 1968?” Continue Reading »
I have made no secret of my disagreement with the historical and theological reasoning Mark Noll employed to lump together dispensationalists, holiness churches, and Pentecostals in his indictment of evangelicalism’s anti-intellectual impulse. Yet Noll and George Marsden, among others, have rightly pointed out how activism operates as a fundamental force within evangelical identity. This operation has both positive and negative consequences, one of which is, no doubt, a culture that devalues the characteristics necessary for the cultivation of the life of the mind.
Two years after a study found most Evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical—especially on the Holy Spirit—an update has been released. And the numbers are in some ways even worse. So who—or what—is to blame? Continue Reading »
It’s one thing for the American political regime to value Christian churches because they help supply the moral requisites for sustaining the regime; for churches themselves to conceive of their purpose in this way is quite another thing. Continue Reading »
A controversy has erupted in the past week over a keynote delivered by Richard Swinburne at the most recent Midwest meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers. We at First Things were curious about the paper that prompted all the to-do, and so we asked Professor Swinburne to let us make his paper available. He has generously agreed. Continue Reading »
It’s that time of year again, when Protestants begin to reflect on what the Reformation has meant and continues to mean. It is a contested legacy, the interpretation and appropriation of which depends upon historical trajectories and contemporary concerns. Within the evangelical world, the legacy of the Reformation unfolds in different ways depending on whether one identifies primarily with the confessional or the pietistic wing. Continue Reading »
Tomorrow I return to Rome for my final year of theological studies before ordination. I have been privileged to journey between the ancient Caput Mundi and the contemporary Capital of the World. Continue Reading »
Mark Helprin’s The Pacific and Other Stories is the book. It is a powerful grouping of diverse tales that take place on different continents, at different times, and among different people. What is common to them all is the effect they produce ... Continue Reading »
Back and better than ever next week. Till soon! Continue Reading »
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