RECOMMENDED: Frequent Bible Reading Can Turn You Liberal

July 15, 2015November 23, 2017Kirk E. Miller 3 Comments

Frequent Bible reading has some predictable effects on the reader. It increases opposition to abortion as well as homosexual marriage and unions. It boosts a belief that science helps reveal God’s glory. It diminishes hopes that science will eventually solve humanity’s problems. But unlike some other religious practices, reading the Bible more often has some liberalizing effects—or at least makes the reader more prone to agree with liberals on certain issues.

Read the full article here.

I’m not sure what you will make of this article. But I find it incredibly interesting and a little self-reassuring that I’m not crazy due to some of my own deviations from stereotypical conservative Christianity’s political views. If nothing else, it’s further evidence, alongside church history and the global church, that moving from Bible to political convictions is not as simple and straightforward as some would like to make it seem, that good, honest, well-intentioned, Bible-believing Christians throughout history have held differing views and various political matters.

RECOMMENDED: The Final Break Between God and Country (Thomas Kidd)

July 15, 2015November 23, 2017Kirk E. Miller

“Perhaps the best thing that can come out of the gay marriage decision is for the church to make a final break between our faith and our nation.”

Read the entire article here.

Goodreads Review of More than Just Race by William J. Wilson

September 11, 2014September 11, 2014Kirk E. Miller

More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good. Provocative. Challenging.

Thesis – “The experience of poor, inner-city blacks represent the influences of more than just race.” Their responses and situation “stem from the linkage between new structural realities, changing norms, and evolving cultural patterns.” (pg. 131)

Wilson’s critique – The politically liberal tend to focus on structural realities to the neglect of cultural realities. Arguments based on culture tend to be taboo for them. The politically conservative tend to focus on individual responsibility and cultural realities to the neglect of prevailing structural realities built into America’s history of racial tension and segregation. Both of these approaches are inadequate.

Wilson’s assessment – Wilson addresses both structural and cultural realities and discusses the relationship between the two as he seeks to assess the situation of the inner-city poor black community in America. On structural realities relationship to culture, he states, “Culture mediates the impact of structural forces such as racial segregation and poverty.” (pg. 133) And on cultures relationship to structural realities, he states, “The behavior generated by these autonomous cultural forces often reinforces the very conditions that have emerged from structural inequities.” (pg. 134)

View all my reviews

Notes on Jordan Ballor and Stephen Long on Theology and Economics

April 16, 2014Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

Last night I went to a lecture and responding lecture hosted by the Carl F.H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. The lecture, presented by Jordan Ballor, was entitled “Theology and Economics: A Match from Heaven?” The response came from Stephen Long.

“Carl Henry Was Right” by Richard Mouw

April 15, 2014September 23, 2025Kirk E. Miller

Carl F H. Henry proposed 5 principles to guide the church on social issues:

The Bible is critically relevant to the whole of modern life and culture—the social-political arena included.
The institutional church has no mandate, jurisdiction, or competence to endorse political legislation or military tactics or economic specifics in the name of Christ.
The institutional church is divinely obliged to proclaim God’s entire revelation, including the standards or commandments by which men and nations are to be finally judged, and by which they ought now to live and maintain social stability.
The political achievement of a better society is the task of all citizens, and individual Christians ought to be politically engaged to the limit of their competence and opportunity.
The Bible limits the proper activity of both government and church for divinely stipulated objectives—the former, for the preservation of justice and order, and the latter, for the moral-spiritual task of evangelizing the earth.

From Richard Mouw, “Carl Henry Was Right.”