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Islam in the west

From First Thoughts

In recent years, especially since 9/11, we have become used to hearing of the rise of Islam in the west and its possibly inevitable growth to majority status in some European countries. This is the story told by Mark Steyn in America Alone and by Bat Ye’or in Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. . . . . Continue Reading »

Right and left

From First Thoughts

One of my pet peeves is the use of the left-right spectrum to categorize the diversity of political visions. There are three reasons for my dislike. First, the terms left and right have no enduring meaning, which has shifted with time. Second, they are frequently used as terms of derision against an . . . . Continue Reading »

Rights, freedom and justice

From First Thoughts

The following was published in the 9 March 2009 issue of Christian Courier as part of my “Principalities & Powers” column:In our postchristian society, appeals to human rights have become the functional equivalent of the biblical prophets’ “thus saith the Lord.” . . . . Continue Reading »

A new president for Redeemer

From First Thoughts

It is evidently the season for institutions of higher learning to select new presidents. We have recently heard announcements from Baylor University and Wheaton College. Now my own employer, Redeemer University College, one of a very few Christian universities in Canada, has just announced the . . . . Continue Reading »

Power corrupts?

From First Thoughts

Lord Acton famously wrote that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” a statement frequently quoted and all too often accepted at face value. Mark Earley’s modification is an improvement:But remember this: power corrupts, but power itself is not . . . . Continue Reading »

Obama the king

From First Thoughts

Barack Obama has been president for just over twelve months and in his recent state of the union address he set out his priorities for his second year in office. It is no surprise that many observers are now questioning Obama’s overall effectiveness in the presidency as unemployment remains . . . . Continue Reading »

(Re)Discovering the evangelical mind

From First Thoughts

Every so often someone in the popular press will make the apparently earth-shattering discovery that evangelical Christians can actually think and are not, after all, “poor, uneducated and easy to command,” as journalist Michael Weisskopf notoriously put it nearly two decades ago. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Worship Music

From First Thoughts

It is not difficult to find Christian theologians and liturgical scholars commenting on what makes for a good hymn text. For example, last year I read J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, in the course of which he discusses the merits of three familiar hymns, Nearer, My God, to . . . . Continue Reading »