What I’m Reading

February 28, 2024.Reading time less than 1 minute.

In My View: History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology.

August 3, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

Wright, N. T. History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2019, Kindle edition, 343 pgs. Wright argues that western culture post-Enlightenment is not an entirely new phenomenon but rather a new expression of ancient Epicureanism that operates with the assumption that there is “a great gulf between […]

Book Review: Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas

July 28, 2023.Reading time 8 minutes.

Metaxas, Eric. Letter to the American Church. Salem Books, 2022. In Letter to the American Church, Metaxas seeks to sound the alarm that the American church is guilty of silence in the face of dangerous political and cultural threats that is akin to the silence and complicity of the German Church during the rise of Nazism […]

Interesting Things I’m Reading: Article from First Things

April 17, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Article: Why I Am a Conspiracy Theorist | Hans Boersma | First Things

September 28, 2021.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Here is a thoughtful convergence of biblical study and reflection on a front line issue. It sounds a warning without sounding angry or unduly afraid. I find that posture worth emulating. Why I Am a Conspiracy Theorist

Scripture Reflection – Romans 13:1-2

January 12, 2021.Reading time 4 minutes.

“Let everyone submit to the governing authorities, since there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are instituted by God. So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God’s command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves.” Romans 13:1-2 This is the difficulty. Both sides of […]

Book Review: The Triumph of Christianity

September 9, 2020.Reading time 14 minutes.

Stark, Rodney. The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion. HarperOne, 2011. Kindle edition. In The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion, Rodney Stark seeks to revise various misconceptions about the “Jesus movement” from it’s inception in first century Rome to the current state of Christianity around the world. Writing […]

How to Read Anything That talks about What Has Already Happened

September 2, 2020.Reading time 15 minutes.

I’m reading Rodney Stark’s Triumph of Christianity in which he argues that one of the worst things that happened to Christianity was Constantine’s legacy of a “rich, powerful, and intolerant church” which suppressed religious competition (Stark, 182). It was not until the Reformation came along in the 16th century and “undid much of Constantine’s harm […]

Book Review: Disappearing Church

August 24, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Sayers, Mark. Disappearing Church: From Cultural Relevance to Gospel Resilience. Moody Publishers, 2016. In Disappearing Church: From Cultural Relevance to Gospel Resilience, Sayers seeks to show that the “Western church’s favored strategy of cultural relevance” will not hold up in the “Third Culture” of post-Christianity and must be replaced by strategies that promote resilient gospel-centered, orthodox faith (14). In […]

Book Review: War and Peace, “Second Epilogue…”

August 22, 2020.Reading time 14 minutes.

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace, “Second Epilogue: A General Discussion on the Historian’s Study of Human Life, and on the difficulty of Defining the Forces that Move Nations. The Problem of Free Will and Necessity” (Norton Critical Edition, 1867). In the second epilogue to War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy argues that describing the “life of nations,” otherwise […]