A Mountain or a Marathon?

In Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society, Rusty Reno offers a brilliant, accessible and modestly optimistic take on the possibilities for positive change in our current cultural climate, upon which I offer some modestly pessimistic thoughts. Continue Reading »

The Christian Roots of Soil Stewardship Week

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” That is a truth that gets double billing in the Bible with the Apostle Paul quoting the Psalmist David in his first letter to the Corinthians. But it is a truth that gets short shrift today. We want an unbridled personal autonomy and a . . . . Continue Reading »

Properly Basic

Knowledge and Christian Belief by alvin plantinga eerdmans, 141 pages, $16 D oes God exist? Is it reasonable to believe in God? A common line of thought holds these two questions to be importantly distinct. Since no one has been able to settle the matter of God’s existence one way or another, it . . . . Continue Reading »

Disagreement, charity, and Islam

It was about animosity to Muslims, not theology. That’s what Miroslav Volf claimed in a Washington Post editorial condemning Wheaton College administrators, who are currently investigating a professor who said that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Ironically, in making this accusation, . . . . Continue Reading »

Francis in Sarajevo

On Saturday, June 6, Pope Francis ­visited Sarajevo, the ­capital of partitioned Bosnia-Hercegovina. Although treated by international media as a typical papal tour, the event strengthened the potential of the Croat Catholic hierarchy in Bosnia to serve as agents of peace and reconciliation. This . . . . Continue Reading »

The Bard's Religion

A Will to Believe: Shakespeare and Religion  by david scott kastan oxford university press, 155 pages, $40.00If Zeno were to write Shakespeare criticism, he might sound a little like David Scott Kastan. The George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University’s meticulous, short book on . . . . Continue Reading »

Going South

From Every Tribe and Nation: A Historian’s Discovery of the Global Christian Story by mark a. noll baker, 224 pages, $19.99 In 1900, over 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and North America. By 2050, the comparable figure should be just over a quarter, with the remainder distributed across . . . . Continue Reading »