God and LoveGod is Love and a Christian is called to worship God. (I John 4:8) Christians are, therefore, a people who worship at the feet of personal Love. All love springs from the recognition of beauty and the source of this beauty is God.For a Christian, God is both the source for humans’ . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Karl Barth and the Problem of War, and Other Essays on Barth , Yoder examines places where Barth’s views on pacifism and war conflict with Barth’s insights in other areas of theology. Yoder gives us a Barthian critique of Barth. One crucial point concerns natural revelation: . . . . Continue Reading »
Theologians have long been fascinated by the way iron takes on the properties of fire, and have used the analogy for all sorts of things. Luther said that the Word confers its qualities to the soul He indwells as the fire confers heat to iron; some church fathers use the iron in the fire as a . . . . Continue Reading »
In an interesting new e-book by Carl Trueman called The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Trueman revisits the question originally posed by Mark Noll, but with an emphasis not on the mind of the evangelical, but with the term evangelical itself. Trueman writes,For there to be a scandal of the . . . . Continue Reading »
In his excellent Christian Ethics in a Technological Age , Brian Brock argues that despite modernity’s best efforts, “the Father of Jesus Christ has not allowed a secularizing West to succeed in erasing the heritage of centuries of divine judgment and reshaping of Western . . . . Continue Reading »
It isn’t something that suddenly happened in 2010, people have been compromising truth since the early days in the Garden. But never has it seemed so clear that people actually lack knowledge of right and wrong. Of course, most people know that murder is wrong, but few could provide a . . . . Continue Reading »
In his book on Dostoevsky, Rowan Williams neatly catches the complex intertwining of the love of self, other, and God: “To love the freedom of the other [that is, the otherness of the other] is also to love oneself appropriately - as an agent of God’s giving of liberty to the neighbor, . . . . Continue Reading »
If God is dead, all is permitted, Dostoevsky said. Westerners, particularly Protestant Westerners, instinctively translate that into a statement about authority. If God is dead, there are no rules, no laws to keep us in check. Protestants especially should see the folly of that conclusion. Law . . . . Continue Reading »
In exploring the privation view of evil, Barth says this: “If God’s reality and revelation are known in His presence and action in Jesus Christ, he is also known as the God who is confronted by nothingness, for whom it constitutes a problem, who takes it seriously, who does not deal . . . . Continue Reading »
The holiday classic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as sung by Judy Garland may be the closest thing to refuting words with musical performance ever heard. You don’t have to know anything about Garland’s sad life to hear the pain in her voice.She may promise we will muddle through . . . . Continue Reading »
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