The other day I congratulated a young colleague who told me that his wife is pregnant. “You’re defying the culture,” I told him. “What do you mean?” I told him that our elite culture today, which dominates the universities and courts and media, is anti-children and anti-nuclear family. Oh, I know, that is a bit of an exaggeration.  People still congratulate you on your first child, and maybe on your second.  Yet I remember a young Christian who told me... Read more

Once again the Pope has made dubious claims in support of a theological imperative. The last time he did this was in his apostolic exhortation on evangelism, in which, amidst wonderful teaching on mission and evangelism, he waded into economics where he is sadly misinformed.  He derided capitalism, which has done more than any other system to lift billions out of poverty. The theological imperative, on which he and I agree, is that Christians must lobby for what helps the... Read more

The Jerusalem Post reports that a debate rages in Israel over the mandatory retirement age for a chief rabbi. Some are trying to force the retirement of Schlomo Riskin from his post as chief rabbi in the city of Efrat (near Bethlehem), a lovely Jewish town where I have visited several times. Riskin is a national and international figure who has attracted controversy because 1) he speaks to many Christian groups saying that he thinks of Jesus as a “model rabbi... Read more

Most people don’t think so. So when they think about travelling abroad, and to a country with a friendly but different culture, they might choose India or the Philippines or Russia or Turkey. Guess what?  All of these countries carry a greater risk of terrorist attack than Israel.  That’s according to the 2014 Global Terrorism Index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Greece is a popular vacation spot, both because of its history and beauty.  And these days,... Read more

Often these days the biblical God is said to be unfair. I say the “biblical” God because that God–and I would say He is the only true God, the God of Israel to whom gentiles are invited–says sex is only for heterosexual marriage. Recently an old friend suggested that this God is unfair by saying that it is “cruel” to say that people with same-sex desire cannot engage in same-sex sexual relations with one another. My old friend gave voice... Read more

So now even David Neff, recently editor of Christianity Today, says gay marriage can be Christian.  He was cheering Tony Campolo’s announcement that Christians should recognize that supposed truth. Some of us have known that Campolo has been thinking this way for years, and that he was providing in his books  hints about his post-biblical, unorthodox position for a good long time. Neff is a friend and colleague.  I am frankly surprised but not shocked.  David held the line in... Read more

Critics of Christian Zionism usually dismiss it for one or more of three reasons: (1) They say it makes mincemeat of the New Testament, where (it is alleged) the Old Testament focus on a particular land is replaced by the vision of a whole world; (2) They think it is the exclusive concern of premillennial dispensationalists, whose theology supposedly uses Jews to advance its own role in presumptuous schedules of End Time events; (3) It is said to be more... Read more

Mark Noll wrote a best-selling book entitled Turning Points.  Thomas Cahill has written a series called Hinges of History in which he presents the rise of Judaism and Christianity and Irish civilization as major junctures in history when everything changed. I think it plausible that we are at a similar point. (more…) Read more

Last week Jean and I were being driven to the Birmingham (AL) airport. As we got on to an 8-lane Interstate with traffic zooming at 70+ mph, we saw just ahead what looked like a movie scene. In the far left lane a car was clipped by another, and was forced toward the rounded concrete barrier on the left side. Suddenly this car shot up twenty feet into the air.  Then it rolled completely over–while still up in the air–not... Read more

It’s time for a new form of Christian Zionism based not on hypothetical End Times scenarios but firmly rooted in the best intellectual traditions of ecumenical Christianity. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/05/06/21st-century-case-for-christian-zionism/ Read more