I recently finished reading The Case for Life by Scott Klusendorf (Crossway, 2009), which presents a compelling case for the personhood of human beings from the moment of fertilization. It also made me realize just how underequipped I was to respond to so many common pro-choice objections. What I’ve done here is gather the objections […]
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Legislating Morality? A Review of Making Men Moral by Robert P. George
The idea of “legislating morality” is pretty unpopular these days. It grates against a widely shared assumption that people have a right to do whatever they want, as long as they don’t harm anyone else. The idea may also raise alarms about the danger of government overreach, perhaps even evoking images of a dystopian, totalitarian […]
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What Is Marriage? A Summary of a Secular Defense of Man and Woman
Sometimes the most obvious things in life are the hardest to define. For example, how does one define beauty? Or manhood? Or marriage? Traditionally, such features of human existence were taken for granted as objective and self-evident, requiring no defense. But things have changed. The obvious is no longer obvious. It’s not quite right to […]
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The American Solidarity Party: Would Kuyper Vote for Them?
This election cycle has forced a lot of Christians—myself included—to rethink their approach to politics from the ground up. While Hillary Clinton’s nomination by the Democratic Party didn’t come as much of a shock, this time last year I couldn’t have predicted that Donald Trump would emerge victorious from the Republican primaries. And yet here […]
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Kuyper on the Church and the Kingdom of God
Exactly what is the relation of the church to God’s kingdom? Are they the same thing? Are they distinct? Abraham Kuyper responds to these questions in the following quote, taken from his address to the Free Church in Amsterdam, now translated in the volume Rooted and Grounded: The Church as Organism and Institution (Christian’s Library Press, 2013): […]
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In Defense of Worldview
The term “worldview” is thrown around a lot in evangelical circles—especially in the world of Christian education—but very rarely is it defined with any care or precision. Much less do many Christians realize just how controversial it is. After all, the term doesn’t come from Scripture or even from Christian theologians, but rather from modern […]
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Grace, Truth, Worldviews and The Ongoing Abortion Debate
I’ve mostly watched the recent abortion debate on my social media feeds with interest, hope, excitement, compassion, and anxiety. My excitement comes from my hope that our society may move closer toward the theological and philosophical position that human life at every stage is valuable. My compassion shows up when I think about people I have who have […]
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From Culture War Burnout to Cultural Faithfulness
The question of Christianity and cultural faithfulness has been one of my most passionate and personal questions; it’s also one of the more contentious questions facing the American Church today. The more you read, the more complicated the question becomes. As a friend of mine says often, “Everything is complicated and everything is connected.” How […]
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Neo-Calvinism’s Blind Spots
Now I should begin by clarifying that I consider myself a neo-Calvinist. I believe that God’s kingdom is broader than the institutional church, and that redemption is not limited to just the “spiritual” part of our lives but also has social, political, and economic dimensions. I think that believers should be actively engaged in culture, […]
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Resources on Neo-Calvinism and Two Kingdoms
Books Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. 4 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008. Bratt, James. Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013. Frame, John. The Escondido Theology: A Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology. Whitefield Media, 2011. Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids, M: Eerdmans, 1943. McIlhenny, Ryan, ed. Kingdoms Apart: […]
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