Originally a lawyer (and cousin of an early President), the clergyman James Madison (1749-1812) had high academic potential (even teaching philosophy and math at the College of William and Mary) and was ordained to the Anglican ministry in 1775. Shortly…
Colonial thinkers Samuel Adams and Rev. Jonathan Mayhew argued against the innate goodness of man with implicit reference to King George III: “Ambition and lust for power,” they claimed, “are predominant passions in the breasts of most men. . .…
When my children need braces, I do not dole out $5000 to a heterodontist to wire their teeth randomly and recklessly. With a view to my children’s good, headgear and retainer wars are fought to ensure straight teeth, not crooked…
Small children play at a park. A boy’s voice breaks into the festivity with a wildly unpopular declaration, “We can only play soccer on the field, not around the playground equipment!” The game stops by the swing set. Outraged to…
I went to public school. For those of you who did the same, you will know immediately the sort of apologetics you are forced to do, or at least think about doing, at an early age. I distinctly remember a…
Strange, that as I drove to the ultrasound for our second child, I received news that my ninety-two-year-old grandmother would begin hospice care. As I sat in a hospital room with my wife, watching life thrive and flicker in shades…
Saving Faith, as we considered in part 1, is a gift of God. It comes from him. Though we exercise that faith, the privilege and power of its exercise draw solely from the font of his grace. Having received the…
Evangelicals uniformly acknowledge the necessity of faith. But what actually is this faith we affirm? Or to put it more personally, what changes in the one who lacks saving faith and subsequently possesses it? What should we say, or…
The salient portion of the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling reads, “The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them” (22-23).[1] In other words, and as you by…
This article is part two of a two-part series. Read part one here. Marriage, History and Theology With magisterial grace, the Bible weds Christian theology to the male/female distinctions in God’s creation of marriage. Space permits only a brief consideration…
