On Evangelical hymns: Can I really sing about a relationship with the Lord that is so joyous that no other person has ever experienced it? Doesn’t this go beyond the bounds of hyperbolic spiritual enthusiasm? Continue Reading »
Recent Protestant debates over the Trinity and the role of women point to a fundamental problem, but also suggest fruitful avenues for future theological and ecclesiastical engagement. Continue Reading »
In the spring of 1836, a few weeks before his Kirtland, Ohio, baptism into the Mormon Church, Lorenzo Snow met with Joseph Smith Sr., the father of Mormonism’s founder. Snow was deeply impressed by this encounter. He came to see it as a turning point in his spiritual journey, especially because of . . . . Continue Reading »
J. I. Packer: An Evangelical Life by leland ryken crossway, 432 pages, $30 I f Evangelical Protestants had a pope, who would it be? Until his death at age ninety in 2011, the most likely answer was John Stott, the longtime preaching and publishing powerhouse. Dignified and statesmanlike, Stott was . . . . Continue Reading »
To say that we evangelicals haven’t always engaged in respectful dialogue with folks representing other perspectives is to put it mildly. But there are clear signs that things are improving, in at least some parts of the evangelical world. The presence of many evangelical voices as a part of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Ribs are getting harder to eat. I was gnawing on some nice tender bones in Memphis recently, but those bones were gnawing on me. Try as I might—and there are many days that I do indeed try to recapture the bliss of ignorance—I know too much about where that pork comes from to just devour it . . . . Continue Reading »
As president of a confessional, Christian graduate school serving a large urban demographic, I have the opportunity to join other believers in gatherings that are deliberately ecumenical: interdenominational, multi-ethnic, even cross-linguistic, and always with a mind for Christian unity. I have . . . . Continue Reading »
The author of this book, a professor of history at the University of Delaware, is an academic of diverse interests, having published volumes on the maritime communities of colonial Massachusetts and the origins of fervent Protestantism in the American South. She is also married to a retired Pentagon official who survived the terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001.