Any religious movement which adopts a purely critical and negative attitude to culture is therefore a force of destruction and disintegration which mobilizes against it the healthiest and most constru...
A Christianity that reflects its culture, whether that culture is Smith College or NASCAR, only lasts as long as it is useful to its host . That’s because it’s, at root, idolatry, and people turn from...
Exodus 5:1-21, 1 Samuel 8:4-22, Isaiah 1:10-17 , Matthew 23:23-28 , Galatians 3:26-29, Psalm 146:3-9
One of the gravest dangers to the Christian faith is its wholesale appropriation of the larger culture. When this happens, the citizens of those places cannot recognize the difference between their cu...
Micah 6:6–8, 1 Samuel 8:4–9, Jeremiah 7:1–7, John 8:36, Romans 12:2, Psalm 146:3–5
Nothing illustrates evangelicals’ infatuation with politics more clearly than a story related by a Christian lawyer. Considering whether to take a job in the nation’s capital, he consulted with the le...
So it is that in most Western industrialized countries church and society have lost their identity, religion has become more and more a private affair, and morality has become secular. This process af...
The problem was that . . . Christian values were always more popular in American culture than the Christian gospel. That’s why one could speak of “God and country” with great reception in almost any e...
My Early Soundtrack What music shaped your early life? For most of us, our parents’ musical tastes probably were our starting place. That music made a deep impression on what we like — and don’t like...
God built into the creation a variety of cultural spheres, such as the family, economics, politics, art, and intellectual inquiry. Each of these spheres has its own proper "business" and nee...
Politics draws lines between people; in contrast, Jesus’ love cuts across those lines and dispenses grace. That does not mean, of course, that Christians should not involve themselves in politics. It ...
The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...
Colossians 1:15-17, Hebrews 1:3, 2 Corinthians 4:4, John 1:18, John 10:30, John 14:9
Christmas in May I’m pretty sure it was Stephen Covey, back in the day ( The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ) who originally said, “The main thing is to let the main thing be the main thing...
Though American Christians do have genuine opponents in the public square and in elite institutions, they have often been their own worst enemies, making disastrous political compromises and looking t...
More often than not, park-it-at-the-door thinking [about religious faith] has less to do with hostility to faith than with the avoidance of risk, for many employer’s fear that any hint of religion is ...
Leviticus 25:10-17, Deuteronomy 15:7-11, Amos 5:11-15, James 82:, Luke 4:18-19
There is no social evil, no form of injustice whether of the feudal or the capitalist order which has not been sanctified in some way or other by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervio...
Exodus 5:1–2, 1 Kings 18:21–39, Daniel 3:16–18, Matthew 5:14–16, Acts 4:19–20, Psalm 2:1–2, 10–12
Most secularists are too politically savvy to attack religion directly or to debunk it as false. So what do they do? They consign religion to the value sphere—which takes it out of the realm of true a...
As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the religious practices of other people, even when these people clearly are raving space loons.
I grew up near Washington D.C. surrounded by politics…I helped with the campaign of a friend’s father as he ran for state office, watched our friendly county supervisor become a US congressman, and le...
Psalm 2:10-11, John 18:36, Matthew 5:13-16, Jeremiah 29:7, Micah 6:8, 1 Samuel 15:22
We can’t separate what we believe in the political arena from who we are in Christ and what obedience to God demands...That said, not every tenet of Christianity should become the law of the state. We...
On April 12, 1963, eight clergy—two Methodist bishops, two Episcopal bishops, one Roman Catholic Bishop, a Rabbi, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist—wrote a letter addressed to the citizens of Alabama. Thi...
1 Corinthians 13:2, James 2:19-20, 1 Corinthians 8:1-2, Ecclesiastes 1:18, 1 Corinthians 2:5, Philippians 3:10, Matthew 7:21, 24-27, James 1:22
The Oxford scholar and apologist C. S. Lewis... once closed a lecture to a group of apologists like this: I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologis...
Exodus 3:7-10, Isaiah 58:6-10, Micah 6:6-8, Matthew 23:27-28 , James 1:26-27, Psalm 146:7-9
A major stumbling block for many earnest seekers is the compelling evidence throughout history that terrible things have been done in the name of religion. This applies to virtually all faiths at some...
1 Samuel 24:10-12, Proverbs 16:8, Romans 12:17-18, Psalm 72:1-4, Micah 6:8, Matthew 5:13-16
When in conflict we should demonstrate that our public witness is more important than winning a political battle. This means that if our side has to do something unloving or corrupt to win, then it’s ...
Isaiah 53:4-5, 1 Samuel 17:, 1 John 12:24-25, Matthew 16:25, Psalm 116:15
Whoever seeks to avoid danger at all costs may ultimately lose the fullness of life, but the one who, out of love for Christ, dedicates themselves to serving others discovers a life that endures. Arch...
Matthew 6:28-29, 1 Peter 3:3-4, Proverbs 31:30, Romans 1:25
Recently, when I was in London, I went to the National Gallery. It was a weekday, but it was still crowded with people wearing headsets, staring at famous paintings, listening to a narrator explain th...
The current context of cultural and religious pluralism magnifies this development. After the disintegration of Christendom-a historical topical apparatus that gave cultural pride of place to Christia...
Gracious God, you have placed us in a culture that seems more and more filled with politics. Forgive us for every time we respond to these politics with decisions that do not honor Christ. Pardon us f...
The United States retains a basic respect for religion though it may be following European trends: surveys show a steady rise in the “nones” (now one-third of those under the age of thirty), that is, ...
Some of us are interested in religious studies because we are interested in people. People do religious things; they symbolize and ritualize their lives and desire to be in a community. What piqued my...
Introduction Leaning Toward the Light What does it mean to lean towards the light of Christ? What does it mean to be open to the work of God? For the Pharisee in Jesus’ time, the answer was clear: y...
You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan relig...