By all accounts it would seem that evangelicalism is currently in the midst of a resurgence of interest in Reformed theology. At conferences and in publications all sorts of people are noting the growing interest in Calvinistic theology, especially (though certainly not exclusively) among younger people. Collin Hansen captured some of this interest in an…
A couple of weeks ago I preached for the first time after the elders at my church were kind enough to ask me if I’d like to contribute to a series called “God’s Sovereign Saving Grace.” This was a series on the Doctrines of Grace that has spanned a few month’s worth of Sunday nights.…
I mentioned last week that I had received the first endorsement for The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, or TDoSD if you were trying to decipher the headline, (which, to remind you, should be available on January 7 of next year). A few weeks ago the manuscript was sent to a handful of authors, teachers and…
Road hockey is a long-standing Canadian tradition–so much so that we invented the word “shinny” to describe the informal games that are played on driveways, roads and parking lots across the nation. It seems that today’s youth generally prefers to play hockey on the Playstation and it is becoming more and more rare to see…
I have done a lot of reading lately and am preparing a bunch of book reviews for the next couple of weeks. I thought it might prove an amusing distraction to select a brief quote from each, provide you the titles to the book, and see if you can match them up. Or even just…
At this rate no one is ever going to take the blogosphere seriously. And it’s all Justin Taylor and Abraham Piper’s fault.* Well, I guess it’s not really their fault, but I think they’ve got some things wrong. Yesterday Abraham, guest-posting on Justin’s site, wrote an article entitled “Tips for Better Blog Writing.” Earlier this…
King for a Week is an honor I bestow on blogs that I feel are making a valuable contribution to my faith and the faith of other believers…or sometimes just because I really like them. It is a way of introducing my readers to blogs that they may also find interesting and edifying. Every two…
In four previous articles, I have discussed the tendency of Christians to put God in a box of our own imaginations. Since it has been a few days since the last article, let me just review each of them really briefly before moving forward in this discussion (and before concluding this discussion). In the introduction…
This is the fourth installment in a series of articles discussing the Christian tendency to put God in a box. In the first article we saw that we tend to feel insecure about God unless we have contained Him within a box in our minds and then saw that God has revealed Himself to us…
This is the third article in a series that discusses that tendency Christians have to put God in a box. In the first article (link) we saw that we tend to feel insecure about God unless we have contained Him within a box in our minds and then saw that God has revealed Himself to…
This is the second article in a short series dealing with the tendency Christians have to put God in a box (click here for the first article). Several people, commenting on this first article, remarked that this is a topic usually reserved for people attacked Reformed theology rather than defending it. Bear with me and…
A couple of years ago I got thinking about the idea of putting God in a box. This is a charge people often level at conservative Christians and Reformed folk in particular. It is not unusual for us to hear that we seem to feel that we have got God figured out, stuffed and mounted…
King for a Week is an honor I bestow on blogs that I feel are making a valuable contribution to my faith and the faith of other believers…or sometimes just because I really like them. It is a way of introducing my readers to blogs that they may also find interesting and edifying. Every two…
I am working on a new feature for Discerning Reader. Every week I’ll troll through a long list of publishers and bestsellers lists to try to find new or upcoming books that look like they will be of particular interest. Since Discerning Reader isn’t quite ready to handle the column yet, I thought I’d post…
This is the fourth and final entry in a series dealing with blogging and the wider societal trends that have contributed to the rise of blogs. This first article is here, the second here and the third here. I am sure that some people reading this series are interested in beginning a blog of their…
This is the third article in a series dealing with blogging. The first article is available here and the second here. In this series I am discussing not only blogging but also some of the wider societal trends that have led to the blog’s popularity. This is a bit of a long article and I…
This is the second article in a series dealing with blogging. The first article is available here. Don’t run away if you are not a blogger and do not have any interest in blogs. I think you’ll find this article helpful in understanding some of the wider societal trends that have led to the rise…
I don’t often post small news items except in A La Carte, but this one seems especially significant. Jerry Falwell died today shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73. It would take some time (and greater expertise than I can offer) to analyze Falwell’s legacy, though surely we…
Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) was a Canadian economist and humorist who wrote several books. He is remembered today only as a humorist. His best work is probably Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, a hilarious satirical look at small-town Ontario. It is utterly brilliant. When I think of Mother’s Day, I often think of a particular…
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is all the rage these days. I first bumped into this strange fad when watching Brian Flemming’s documentary The God Who Wasn’t There. At the end of this film, at its very climax, Flemming, while standing at the front of an empty chapel, slowly turns the camera and speaks right…