Monthly Archives: July 2020

NOTES ON THE TRINITY

A few years back, I listened to theologian Miroslav Volf’s talk at Wheaton.  Many things struck/troubled me, but here are a few:

*It seems his theology has collapsed into ethics.

*I would love to hear his exegesis of John 8.

*He says rightly that Muslims reject a conception of the trinity that is not the one of orthodox Christianity.  He says the reason Muslims have done this is because most Christians can’t articulate the orthodox doctrine of the trinity.  That is also correct in a way, but Volf makes no mention that Muhammad was reacting to the worship of many tribal deities not the trinity.  I found this amazing.

TELLING A BETTER STORY

The best compliment I can pay this book is that it joins my list of favorite dead and living authors for better engagement with our culture.

For the former, there are Augustine, Pascal, Chesterton, Lewis and Newbigin. For the later there are Dan Taylor, James K.A. Smith, Tim Keller, Charles Taylor, and James Davison Hunter.

BRILLIANCE ON STEROIDS!

Thomas Sowell dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He later became an economist and social theorist who is currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

1. People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

2. If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

3. Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.

4. Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

5. The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

6. The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

7. The real minimum wage is zero.

8. What multiculturalism boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture—and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.

9. In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.

10. People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

11. Elections should be held on April 16th—the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

HT: George Grant

THE TEMPLE AND THE TABERNACLE

The Temple and the Tabernacle is one of those books I can recommend with gusto.

The text of the book is gorgeously accented with loads of pictures. Baker has done a truly stellar job with the production of this book.

Hays is a careful reader of Scripture. He does not make wild claims, yet there are many wonderful insights throughout his book.

I learned much from this book. It is accessible, but loaded with insight.

My safe guess is that it will help you make better sense of the tabernacle and the temple.

A CATHOLIC INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT

As a Protestant with small c catholic sensibilities, there is much to like about this book. I made over 400 notes in the margins.

The writing is clear, the scholarship is impressive, and the various charts and graphs add a lot to the text. 

It is ecumenical in the best sense of that word as it interacts with much scholarship outside the Roman Catholic.

There are certainly areas of disagreement like the immaculate conception and whether Rom. 3:1,2 about the Jews being entrusted with the oracles of God is significant for the extent of the Old Testament canon. I think it is whereas Pitre and Bergsma do not.

All in all, it is a remarkable achievement and one I will be recommending.

STILL NOT WILD AT HEART

The largely disembodied, behavioristic models of sanctification need to be shown a better way. I am troubled and have written a bit (book reviews of Wild at Heart, Prayer of Jabez, and a “men’s” book) on the silly and superficial models that are all too easy to criticize. Several men I know who raved about the life-changing nature of Wild at Heart boot camps and Promise Keepers remain immature as Paul said “in their thinking.”

Historic Christianity has the resources to offer compelling models that address the whole person. My fear is that pastors and other Christian leaders are increasingly ignorant of the riches that largely remain buried.

 

HISTORY OR GOD?!

I just watched Lin-Manuel Miranda apologize for not speaking about more forcefully about injustice towards Blacks. I am willing to agree with him on this, but his closing statement is stunning. 

Miranda closes by saying, “History has its eyes on all of us.” I certainly get his point, but it got me thinking whether history is a big enough motivation.

I think the fear of God is not only the true motivation, but one that has lasting fruit.

PREDICTING THE FUTURE

Os Guinness told me that he has no respect for self-styled scholars who think they can predict the future. It usually results in more heat than light.

Yes, we are in troubled times. Responsible people are not futurists, but responsible people are aware when upheaval due to competing ideas is afoot. We are definitely at such a time.

People like the Princeton historian, Daniel Rodgers, along with the political theorist, Yuval Levin, use the word fracture to describe what is going on in America. We have fractured, and so split into various tribes that are turning on one another.

There are now very different visions of what it means to be an American. A shared story/idea seems like an impossibility, yet we Christians have hope. And yet, that hope is eschatological, so our country as we’ve known it may be altering in ways we never imagined.