Of Virgin Births and Whale’s Bellies

Allan Bevere asks an interesting question today on his blog: Just how important is the doctrine of the virgin birth to you? He titles the post Must One Believe in the Virgin Birth to Be a Christian?

I tend to annoy people on both sides of the spectrum (belief in miracles spectrum, of course) [...]

Loving C. S. Lewis and Hating Rob Bell?

Michael Patton, who often steps into controversial issues (which I do not mean as a criticism), asks why people love C. S. Lewis, but hate Rob Bell. His conclusion is that this is because Bell’s ideas that push the boundaries characterize his ministry, unlike those of C. S. Lewis.

I must admit that I’ve [...]

Responding to the New Atheism

Laura at Pursuing Holiness has a good post on a Christian response to the New Atheism. I agree largely with Laura, though I would comment on a couple of details.

First, a common objection I hear to the new atheists is that they are too vocal and forceful. I think this criticism is not [...]

On C. S. Lewis

There’s an article in the Touchstone archives by Bishop Wright which I find very interesting, largely because it expresses some of my own feelings regarding Lewis.

C. S. Lewis is, of course, a brilliant writer. I enjoy reading even those things with which I disagree, and not just because I like to be challenged. [...]

Contest via my Company – Energion Publications

This is a sort of commercial message, except I’m trying to give some money away. My company, Energion Publications, is sponsoring a contest, and entries are very slow. There are two $50 B&N gift cards on the line, one for the best affirmative and one for the best negative entry in answer to the [...]

BioLogos and Reasons to Believe in Dialogue

While I am much more in support of the approach of BioLogos than Reasons to Believe, I’m glad to see that they are discussing. Perhaps laying out the details of each group’s approach may help Christians understand the issues more clearly.

I see very little future, however, for the day-age theory, despite its strong [...]

Disaster and Judgment

John Piper has suggested that the tornado that struck Minneapolis was a judgment on the ELCA for the recent change in their statement on human sexuality. Piper is a great preacher, and despite some disagreements, I love to hear him present a good gospel message, but I find this, and other similar statements, quite [...]

Borrowing and Inspiration

I want to discuss inspiration just a bit, partly because it is relevant to my next post on Biblical interpretation (I hope to post it later today), and partly because there is someone on Twitter who is spouting a great deal of nonsense with regard to parallels and borrowing.

(For those interested, he is [...]

Embracing the Mysteriousness of God

First, let me put away another mystery, though I doubt anyone was wondering that much. I’ve been working on a couple of new book releases and the resulting schedule kept me from blogging most of the week. No mystery there!

The word “mystery” is rather popular today, but only in the sense of something [...]

Interpreting the Bible – Mid-Course Focus

This isn’t a summary of previous posts, but rather an attempt to focus on the issue I’m trying to address with this series before I continue. The problem with a series like this is that the examples begin to take over the topic. Since I have used complementarianism and theistic evolution as examples, and [...]