Troubler of Israel
Burning and crushing a body into powder says something about it. It has symbolic significance, and all mankind throughout all of history until very recently has understood this. Read more
Burning and crushing a body into powder says something about it. It has symbolic significance, and all mankind throughout all of history until very recently has understood this. Read more
This week a friend sent me a piece by Rebecca Calhoun at Christ and Pop Culture entitled “Moving Past the Purity Movement.” I’ve got to say, it’s one of the best and most insightful articles I’ve read on the subject. I found myself nodding in agreement and admiring Calhoun’s maturity and fair-mindedness. If anything, she makes much the same point I made last year in my less merciful treatment of millennial evangelicals blaming Joshua Harris for their sexual problems decades after... Read more
Today a Facebook friend of mine shared a snarky meme from an atheist page. It was that popular painting of Jesus holding a toddler in a rose garden and pointing playfully at something. It looks like one of those kitschy pictures you find in Mormon pamphlets. I don’t know its origin. Whatever the case, it was the caption that caught my attention. “Do you see that man over there, Timmy?” asks Jesus. “That’s the man that murdered you and your... Read more
Reformed Christianity can seem sharply divided and at times schizophrenic on the issue of holidays and the church calendar. Many argue that strict application of the Regulative Principle of Worship outlined in our confessions of faith prohibits the observance of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, etc. There is a great deal of piety-policing within more theologically-committed circles where it is a mark of the elite to only celebrate the Christian Sabbath (Sunday), and nothing else. And not without reason.... Read more
Rabbis Yehiel Poupko and David Sandmel have an interesting piece in Christianity Today entitled, “Jesus Didn’t Eat a Seder Meal: Why Christians Shouldn’t, Either.” Their basic claim is that the Seder meal as celebrated at Passover by Jews the world over originated in the centuries following the destruction of Jerusalem and the birth of Christianity, and was never celebrated by Jesus or His disciples. Therefore, the increasing popularity of Jewish-inspired Passover celebrations among American evangelicals, especially Christians identifying as Messianic... Read more
It’s time for remedial Christianity 101. Mainstream newspapers and networks are clumsy when it comes to reporting religion. Terry Mattingly’s “Get Religion” blog is a longstanding catalogue of the press’s most embarrassing mistakes and misrepresentations. And this week, The Associated Press made the list again. In a story about the restoration of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, AP calls it the place “where Jesus was buried and rose to heaven.” Notice the problem? As Mattingly points out, this is the... Read more
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about what I call the “tyranny of exceptions.” Many people, when confronted with valid generalizations, are incapable of admitting the truth of these generalizations without immediately fleeing to exceptions. “Children do best with a mother and father” sparks the reflexive retort, “I was raised by a single mom, and I turned out just fine.” “The government does a poor job of funding good art” raises the immediate objection, “But what about those trippy dance... Read more
Maybe they should rename their award. Princeton Theological Seminary just reversed the decision to recognize Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, for his church-planting and public witness. Seminary president, Craig Barnes, explained that awarding Keller the Kuyper Prize—named after Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper, would imply that the seminary endorses Keller’s views on women’s ordination and LGBT issues. As a member of the conservative Presbyterian Church in America, Keller takes the historic view on sex and gender. For the liberal... Read more
Somewhere around 2014 midterms, the intemperate drives of the Left and Right both reached a critical mass, and something broke loose. 2015: Videos surface showing Planned Parenthood sells human body parts. The Supreme Court redefines marriage to include homosexuals. A movie about sadomasochism makes half a billion dollars. A man dressed as a woman appears on the cover of TIME magazine. 2016: President Obama directs public schools nationwide to open lockers and restrooms to students of the opposite sex. The... Read more
Who thought up this advertising campaign? Brawny paper towels has launched a new “Strength Has No Gender” campaign. The packaging features a flannel-clad woman in place of the brand’s iconic lumberjack. It goes along with a commercial that highlights female pioneers in science, civil rights, suffrage, aviation, and the like, all “breaking barriers.” Celebrating female pioneers and historical greats is, of course, wonderful. My BreakPoint colleague, Eric Metaxas, did just that in his book, “Seven Women.” But in their rush to... Read more
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