Grothaus’s life was in a rut…until he read War and Peace. Its 1500 pages took him two months to conquer and immediately became his favorite book because of how it changed him. “It’s  almost impossible to explain why,” he says “but after reading it I felt more confident in myself, less uncertain about my future…As weird as... Continue Reading

“Most 19th-century and early-20th-century Americans would have affirmed that the United States was a “Christian nation,” even if they would have disagreed bitterly about the meaning of that phrase. Nor were public displays of generic (or even Christian) religiosity new, though they took on new forms during the Eisenhower administration.”   Kevin Kruse’s One Nation... Continue Reading

Another implication is that liberal prescriptions tend to be incredibly single-minded as compared to those of conservatives. Haidt uses the metaphor of a bee hive to illustrate. A liberal, finding a bee in the hive suffering from injustice, is motivated more or less exclusively by the desire to get justice for the bee. A conservative,... Continue Reading

“In my early years of marriage when Matt was in seminary and our leisure time was devoted to reading, I devoured A Chance to Die, the story of Elisabeth’s own hero Amy Carmichael. Besides being challenged by Amy’s exemplary life, I was encouraged that my hero had a hero.”   I was 15 years old... Continue Reading

Regarding sexual orientation, Butterfield traces this back to Sigmund Freud who rooted identity in sexuality rather than being made in the image of God. This has profound implications because people are now identified in categories that reject Original Sin.    Openness Unhindered, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Crown & Covenant Publications, July 2015, 206 pages. The Secret... Continue Reading

The value in a worldview lies in its consistency and ability to explain those things which form the real stuff of our lives.  She adduces a string of leading atheist thinkers to demonstrate a kind of cognitive dissonance, where the practicalities of real life are actually antithetical to what they profess to be true. Atheists act as if Christian epistemology is true,... Continue Reading

“The third use of the Law (being also the principal use, and more closely connected with its proper end) has respect to believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already flourishes and reigns. For although the Law is written and engraven on their hearts by the finger of God, that is, although they are... Continue Reading

“Anyone who is familiar with Ferguson knows that he is able to take complex topics and make them accessible without compromising. In particular, he is able to take the concept from the “classroom” to the “pavement” by teaching how it applies. I really appreciate this about the author.”   As Christians we know that our... Continue Reading

One thing that I appreciate about Carr’s writing is that she doesn’t debone it. What I mean is, she doesn’t take out all of the inconvenient truths and stumbling blocks that most children’s authors would remove for easy digestion. Carr tells is like was and leaves the reader faced with some of the same perplexities... Continue Reading

But study Bibles also have shortcomings. In order to keep the size of the Bible within a reasonable scope (the ESV Study Bible really pushes the envelope here, at almost 2,800 pages) something has to give. Generally what is lost is commentary on the text itself. Comments on difficult passages are often the first to... Continue Reading