James Loewen (2007) has written an interesting book on American history, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. As the title intimates, this is a book about the errors and omissions of our history textbooks. One observation Loewen makes about our curriculum strikes me in particular. Loewen complains American history textbooks tend to … [Read more...] about One More Reason to Trust the Bible
The Glory of Every Person
In his essay "The Weight of Glory," C.S. Lewis considers the echoes of eternity found in every person. Occasionally, we encounter the "scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited" (Lewis, 2001, p. 31). Lewis suggests these faint echoes and deep longings reveal our true nature and destiny, that we were … [Read more...] about The Glory of Every Person
The Discipline of Retreat
This weekend the students at our church participate in our annual fall retreat. It is easy to think of a fall retreat as an event. But we try to think of our fall retreat as a spiritual discipline. M. Robert Mulholland Jr. (1993) describes retreat in these terms: Retreat is the discipline of setting apart a time, individually or corporately, to step aside from the … [Read more...] about The Discipline of Retreat
John Frame on the Forensic Nature of Justification
John Frame (2013) discusses the forensic nature of justification in this way: The language [for justification in the Westminster Larger Catechism] is forensic, that is, the language of a law court. In that court God is the Judge, and we are on trial for our sins - both the sin of Adam and the sins that we have committed in this life. The wages of sin is death, so clearly we … [Read more...] about John Frame on the Forensic Nature of Justification
The Changing Politics of Church Property
For centuries churches have marked the American landscape. They have stood as icons in the middle of towns, their steeples pointing to a higher reality. But this may no longer be the case. As America continues to urbanize and secularize, and as dying churches shut down and sell off their property, finding a place in the heart of a town or city may be increasingly difficult to … [Read more...] about The Changing Politics of Church Property