Sin, the Church, & the Nation

  

Item The New Mexico Supreme Court rules that a Christian photographer who didn’t want to photograph a homosexual wedding has to do so. Her faith was not as important as the right of the couple to force her to be their photographer. Her faith has to accommodate to their wishes because anti-discrimination is more essential than religious liberty. Item A bakery in Oregon refuses to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding. The business now faces an anti-discrimination lawsuit. Item… Read more »

Syria: Making Another Foolish Mistake?

  

For more than a year, President Obama has been issuing warnings to Syria that the United States will not stand by idly while thousands are being slaughtered in the civil war taking place there. He has repeatedly spoken of a “red line” that cannot be crossed—the use of chemical weapons by the government against those who are attempting to topple Bashar al-Assad. Although that line was crossed quite a while ago, the administration has now gotten around to admitting it…. Read more »

Our One-Sided Racial Conversation

  

Two men were killed last week in what have been described as senseless murders. First point to be made: all murders are committed without sense, in that they are violations of the moral code God has inscribed on our hearts. We call some of them senseless because we can’t connect the act to some rationale, however invalid. In both of these cases, the victims were unknown to their assailants and had done nothing to warrant any type of reprisal. Christopher… Read more »

Finney’s Prescription for Self-Examination

  

Charles Finney takes aim in his Revival Lectures on the imperfect and incomplete way in which we often deal with sin. We tend to generalize and gloss over the immensity of our sinful hearts and the actions that flow from those hearts. Here’s the instruction he gives, and I think he’s on the right track: If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, you must begin by looking at your hearts: examine and note the state… Read more »

Lewis: God Is the Judge, Not Us

  

Man, in his sinfulness, will go to any length to excuse himself for what he has become. One of the favorite hobbies of modern man is to push the blame for the problems of the world onto God. In his essay, “God in the Dock,” C. S. Lewis describes this attitude: The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge; God… Read more »

Snyderian Truism #6

  

When I teach history, the emphasis is not on statistics, charts, or graphs, helpful as they all are. Instead, I concentrate on individuals and their impact on events. I believe history is a story, which includes themes, plots, and character development. As we begin to delve into the events of history in class, I reveal to my students another Snyderian Truism that I hope will make them see a significant distinction: Personality and character are not the same: the first… Read more »

Christian Education: Transformed Minds

  

Classes begin today. This will be the start of my 25th year of teaching at the college level and my 8th at SEU. My two courses today are the American history surveys—one from the colonial era through the Civil War, the other post-Civil War. Yet I give both sections the same introduction because there are some basics the students need to be reminded of. First, I offer a brief testimony of what the Lord has done in my life and… Read more »