Was Søren Kierkegaard a Poet, a Prophet, a Philosopher, or What? (Thoughts Sparked by a New Biography of the “Melancholy Dane”) I was recently in Grand Rapids, Michigan and spent some time at one of my publishers—Zondervan (a division of HarperCollins). (I recorded a video course based on my most recent book Essentials of Christian Thought which is published by Zondervan.) During lunch with friend Stan Gundry, chief editor of Zondervan, he gave me a copy of a new Zondervan… Read more

Few Americans in 2017 understand how close we—America and the Soviet Union—came to nuclear war during that early 1960s crisis. Many people believed it was inevitable. Read more

Do Women Make Good Ministers? Confession: I grew up in a form of Christian life that had women pastors, evangelists, church planters and, of course, missionaries. The only thing women could not do in church life was, apparently, serve as denominational executives. I don’t think there was any rule against it; it just didn’t happen—except in those few denominations founded by women. Both my birth mother and stepmother were licensed ministers of the gospel. (I don’t recall whether either one… Read more

In liberal Christianity, there’s a tendency to reduce the Bible to “the Christian classic” that is “inspired” insofar as it is inspiring. Read more

What Is “Fundamentalism?” I was recently asked by a friend to define “fundamentalism.” And the question comes up in almost every class I teach. I have tried to define it here before but new people come to my blog all the time and my own understanding of fundamentalism evolves. A few years ago some scholars associated with the University of Chicago (as I recall) launched “The Fundamentalism Project” and published a series of very large edited volumes about the subject…. Read more

Evangelicalism is not a movement or group but a spiritual-theological ethos. Read more

To the best of my knowledge, nobody thinks or can show that the Bible itself actually says God is “infinite.” Read more

A New Christian Dogmatics from Eerdmans I recently received from publisher Wm. B. Eerdmans a complimentary copy of Christian Dogmatics: An Introduction by two Dutch theologians Cornelis van der Kooi and Gijsbert van den Brink (2012/2017). It’s a beautifully hard cover volume encompassing 806 pages (including indexes). On the back cover and inside are glowing endorsements by Richard J. Mouw, Michael S. Horton, Charles Van Engen, and John Bolt—all well-known Reformed theologians with evangelical credentials. I have not read the… Read more