Gone and Left Behind

Last updated on: October 6, 2014 at 11:31 am By Samuel James

As an intriguing case study into two ways to do Christian film criticism, observe the flip flopped reactions to two movies from two sources. First up, the Nicolas Cage reboot of Left Behind. Jackson Cuidon at Christianity Today is scathing: If the Left Behind books were just pulp novels injected with Christianity, then the Left Behind movie is just a disaster flick injected with the slightest, most infinitesimal amount of Christianity possible. This is, in one way, good—no one needs to... Read more

John Piper and “War-Time Living:” A Dissenting View

Last updated on: October 2, 2014 at 4:51 pm By Samuel James

Yesterday I highlighted Michael Horton’s upcoming book Ordinary. Phillip Cary gives the book four stars out of five at Christianity Today. (more…) Read more

Turning Anger into Cash

Last updated on: October 2, 2014 at 9:02 am By Samuel James

Chris Martin ponders the mercenary nature of Twitter outrage and “trial by hashtag.” Rage generates pageviews far more than reason, and pageviews are how these people make money. As long as you’re on social media and clicking links like the ones above, you’re contributing to the epidemic. Pageviews generate money, rage-tweets and shocklines drive pageviews, and reason loses. Russell Moore seconds the point: The louder and more frantic the anger, the more we feel as though we’re really showing conviction and... Read more

Sandy Hook was not about homeschooling

Last updated on: October 1, 2014 at 10:57 am By Samuel James

I’m grateful to World Magazine and Andrew Branch for reporting yesterday on some troubling developments in Connecticut. A task force created by Governor Daniel Malloy after the horror of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting has recommended that state authorities receive oversight powers on the state’s homeschooling families. From the World article: Under the proposed recommendations, parents of homeschooled children with behavioral and emotional problems would have to submit individualized education plans to the special education director of the local school... Read more

The Great Big American Liberal God

Last updated on: September 30, 2014 at 4:52 pm By Samuel James

Buried underneath endless sediment of vitriol, spite and calcified heterodoxy, Matthew Paul Turner’s book Our Great Big American God has something meaningful to say. I think it has something to do with how we as a culture try to project our own nature onto God. Mark Twain, a person likely as hostile to evangelicalism as Mr. Turner, still managed to make an articulate point: “In the beginning God made man in His image; man, being a gentleman, has sought to... Read more

Rethinking ‘Radical’

Last updated on: September 30, 2014 at 12:00 pm By Samuel James

Michael Horton has an upcoming book entitled Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World. Based on the excerpts and previews that I’ve seen, this book deserves a great deal of attention and anticipation. Yesterday Tim Challies featured a passage from the book as a blog post, and I nearly came out of my chair in agreement at this: In many ways, it’s more fun to be part of movements than churches. We can express our own individuality, pick our favorite leaders,... Read more

Jonathan Merritt Should Apologize to Kevin DeYoung

Last updated on: September 29, 2014 at 2:14 pm By Samuel James

This morning, progressive Christian blogger Jonathan Merritt interviewed theologian Peter Enns on the Bible and inerrancy. Merritt prefaced his interview with a disclaimer, explaining that the post was originally intended to be two part dialogue with Enns and pastor Kevin DeYoung, who has also published a recent book on the Bible. The issue is that DeYoung declined to be interviewed by Merritt. That shouldn’t be too big of an issue, right? Interviews get declined every day for many reasons. But... Read more

Keeping Science Fallible

Last updated on: September 29, 2014 at 9:48 am By Samuel James

Sean Davis’s inquiry into the accuracy of some of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s recent claims should be a classic case of journalism doing its job on behalf of the public. After all, the usual suspects are all here: A well-respected public figure (Tyson) making assertions of questionable truthfulness; said assertions are widely accepted without question, until a blogger uncovers serious discrepancies that make it almost certain that the assertions are partially or wholly false. This is quite a familiar narrative to... Read more

Stop Denigrating Philosophy

Last updated on: September 25, 2014 at 4:09 pm By Samuel James

If there’s one story I’m tired of opening on my computer, it’s the public figure who openly denigrates the study of philosophy. It is mystifying to me that people in positions of prestige and even power can be utterly clueless as to what philosophy is and what it equips its students to do. This time, it’s a United States governor. Dennis Daugaard, the Republican governor of South Dakota, was quoted in an interview this month giving students the following advice about... Read more

Tradition and Revolution

Last updated on: September 25, 2014 at 12:16 pm By Samuel James

[Edmund] Burke’s complaint against the revolutionaries was that they assumed the right to spend all trusts and endowments on their own self-made emergency. Schools, church foundations, hospitals–all institutions that had been founded by people, now dead, for the benefit of their successors–were expropriated or destroyed, the result being the total waste of accumulated savings, leading to massive inflation, the collapse of education and the loss of traditional forms of social and medical relief. In this way, contempt for the dead... Read more