National Day of Prayer

Today is the National Day of Prayer, not government-sponsored, but called by Christian leaders throughout our nation. Only in calling out to God will anything going wrong in this country be reversed. In the spirit of this day, I offer the following prayer. Lord, we are in trouble as a nation, as You well know, even better than we do. The problems aren’t all at the top politically; there is a culture that has not only accepted sin but has… Read more »

Baltimore’s Real Problems & the Solution

Baltimore is now outwardly calmed, although reports from the ground say that there remains a simmering anger. Some of that has been assuaged by the news that charges are being brought against the six police who were somehow involved with the arrest of Freddie Gray. It’s interesting to note, though, that three of those six are African American, one an African American woman whose last name is White. Irony of ironies. Let’s be honest here. None of what occurred with… Read more »

Orders from the Brave New World

In case you missed it . . . At the Supreme Court last week, as lawyers argued the same-sex marriage case, one of the justices, Samuel Alito, asked the government’s attorney, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, a striking question. What was even more striking was the answer he received: Looking ahead to a possible constitutional right to same-sex “marriage,” Justice Samuel Alito asked a key question: “In the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to… Read more »

Lewis: Casting Out Fear

C. S. Lewis is just so quotable. Take this one, for instance, from one of his essays, “The World’s Last Night.” Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things—ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast… Read more »

Magna Carta: The Biblical Basis

Last week I wrote about the principles at stake in the American War for Self-Government (a.k.a., the American Revolution). What we need to realize is that the American colonists didn’t formulate these principles in a vacuum. There is a long history of British documents related to limited government and the rights of citizens. First on that list is the Magna Carta. Written in the 13th century (1215, to be precise), the Magna Carta was a response to King John, who… Read more »

Baltimore: The Deeper Issues

Baltimore is burning. What, exactly, is happening? There are many layers to this; most people focus on the superficial ones, the ones most clearly visible, but there are foundational problems that have led not only to this particular incident, but to an atmosphere like this that is sweeping our nation. The top layer has to do with the arrest and death of a young black man, Freddie Gray. We still don’t have all the facts about what occurred. The investigation… Read more »

Lewis: Going Through the Door

Perhaps one of C. S. Lewis’s most engaging and thought-provoking short pieces is the sermon he gave during WWII called “The Weight of Glory.” There are so many wonderful passages in this sermon that it’s hard to pick out the best one. Here is one, though, that certainly stands out as he writes poignantly of the move from this world to the next. If we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give… Read more »