On Clowns, Presidents, & the First Amendment

  

I always prefer to write about truly significant events or great insights offered by the wisest people. Then there are days that simply dictate what needs to be written, whether significant or not. This is one of those days. I have a difficult time believing I have to comment on what a rodeo clown did last week, but the story refuses to die. You probably already know what happened, but for the few who live in a monastery somewhere carefully… Read more »

Finney: The Atonement Is for All

  

After Charles Finney’s overwhelming conversion experience, his pastor, the Rev. Gale, undertook the task of trying to train him for the ministry. The theology he tried to convince Finney to accept didn’t seem right to him. As he explains in his autobiography, Soon after I was converted I called on my pastor, and had a long conversation with him on the atonement. He was a Princeton student, and of course held the limited view of the atonement—that it was made… Read more »

Lewis: God Is the End, Not the Means to an End

  

Here’s a very timely reminder from C. S. Lewis that God is not some convenient prop we can use to achieve whatever else we want in life or eternity. He, in fact, is the goal of life; knowing Him is what it’s all about. As Lewis states it in A Grief Observed, the most personal of all his books, as it deals with the loss of his wife, He [God] can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him… Read more »

Repealing Obamacare: Tactics vs. Strategy

  

I spend a lot of time writing about principles. One of my key warnings is that we remain principled in our thinking and our actions; pure pragmatism is dangerous because it neglects the basic truths. Yet that doesn’t mean that principled people shouldn’t be wise. Jesus told His disciples to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. He said that as He sent them out to deliver His message. On occasion, Jesus even told people He had healed to… Read more »

Finney & Activist Christian Citizens

  

In an article I wrote about Charles Finney’s view of Christian involvement in civil government, I drew from his Systematic Theology to show his bedrock beliefs about the linkage between God and civil government, and how such government is absolutely part of God’s plan. Finney didn’t even see government as a necessity only because of man’s sinfulness. He believed some type of government would be essential even if men were not sinners: If all men were perfectly holy and disposed… Read more »

Lewis: There Are No Ordinary People

  

One of my all-time favorite C. S. Lewis quotes—and that’s saying a lot, considering there are so many that could qualify—is found in a sermon he gave called “The Weight of Glory.” He preached this in 1942 at the Oxford Church of St. Mary the Virgin. I’ve been to Oxford only once, but on that brief visit, I entered that church and climbed to the top to see spectacular views of the university below. What transpired in its pulpit, though,… Read more »

Snyderian Truisms #4 & #5

  

Some of my truisms are generated in the classroom. They aren’t always things I’ve sat down and considered beforehand; at times, they pop out unexpectedly. For instance, a number of years ago, I was teaching about the founding of Jamestown and was relating the fact that the first ships that arrived had no women in them. The investors in the company who sent over the ships were primarily interested in trade, so they concentrated on setting up a trading post… Read more »