Category: Biblical Principles

What are the general truths that should guide our thinking in all areas of life? Here are some possibilities.

My Personal Creed as a Christian & a Historian

  

Caught between two worlds, yet both informed by my Christian faith. What am I talking about? I am a history professor, what you would have to call a “professional historian.” That is one of my worlds. As an academic, I am devoted to research and accuracy in my teaching and writing. Historians generally don’t get involved in commentary on current events, and at least make some attempt at appearing “above politics.” Now, of course, much of that is pretense. For… Read more »

Truths That Need No Proof

  

The apostle Paul, in Romans 1 and 2, explains that God has made each one of us with an innate knowledge of Him and of right and wrong. We don’t grow up in a vacuum; there are some things we come to know because He has placed within us the ability to grasp them even without the aid of divine revelation. Paul called them the law written on the heart; the Founders of America referred to them as self-evident truths…. Read more »

Wood, Hay, & Straw

  

Jim Wallis, one of the leaders of what might be termed the Christian Left, has now come out in favor of same-sex marriage. Ever since his days as a member of the 1960s radical group Students for a Democratic Society, which was grounded in socialist/communist philosophy, Wallis has tried to walk a fine line in an attempt to marry [pun intended] Biblical principles with a humanistic, atheistic worldview. It has been as spectacularly unsuccessful as the same-sex unions he now… Read more »

The Sense of Sin

  

We live in an age when the idea of sin is dismissed as a relic of an outmoded religious system designed to suppress one’s desires for happiness. As we’ve seen so abundantly recently, in our entertainment media and all the way to the Supreme Court, equality has now been applied to same-sex relationships. Anyone who disagrees with this new enlightenment is archaic. Our society needs the message that is at the very ground level of Christian understanding: all men are… Read more »

Salt, Light, & Truth

  

I write often about the drift of our culture into acceptance of a type of sex God forbade. For many people, this whole issue is simply a matter of “democracy”—let the people decide what they want. When you introduce the moral element, they tell you that’s irrelevant. All that matters is that we are devoted to popular sovereignty. As a historian, I know that term well. The last time it was front and center in the political debate was prior… Read more »

C. S. Lewis: The Resurrection

  

On this Resurrection [Easter] Sunday, here is some insight from C. S. Lewis from his book Miracles: The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences, were the “gospel” or good news which the Christians brought: what we call the “gospels,” the narratives of Our Lord’s life and death, were composed later for the benefit of those who had already accepted the gospel. They were in no sense the basis… Read more »

What Kind of Love Is This?

  

On this Easter weekend, we think about why Jesus would subject Himself to the horrors of crucifixion. What kind of love is this, that God would decide to suffer such humiliation and pain, both physical and spiritual? And for whom? A race of people who thumb their noses at His love? A humankind that cares more about selfish interests than God and one another? Yes, those are the ones for whom He died. It’s hard to grasp. There must be… Read more »