Worldview & Culture

RECOMMENDED: Tim Keller on the Erosion of the “Middle”

Kirk E. Miller

“Tim Keller on the Disappearing Umbrella over Conservative Christians” by Trevin WaxKeller-219x300 – A great assessment on our shifting culture and evangelicals place within it.

The number of the devout people in the country is increasing, as well as the number of secular people. The big change is the erosion is in the middle. … You don’t so much see secularization as polarization, and what is really disappearing is the middle.

Similarly, see my sermon from around a year ago – Christian Living in a Post-Christendom America.

Goodreads Review of Integrative Psychotherapy: Toward a Comprehensive Christian Approach by Mark R. McMinn

Kirk E. Miller

Integrative Psychotherapy: Toward a Comprehensive Christian ApproachIntegrative Psychotherapy: Toward a Comprehensive Christian Approach by Mark R. McMinn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The authors claim to present a (not “the”) Christian approach to psychotherapy. They are theologically sensitive. I appreciate this. However, it is less clear to me how their approach is DISTINCTIVELY Christian and not simply SENSITIVE to Christian truth-claims.

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J. Gresham Machen’s “Christianity and Liberalism”–Continued Relevance for a Continued Liberalism

Kirk E. Miller 2 Comments

As contemporary Christian continues its debate over homosexuality and (so-called) same sex marriage, my mind keeps drifting back to one of my favorite books of all time, Christianity and Liberalism (originally published in 1923) by J. Gresham Machen, one of my favorite authors of all time. (See my review of this book here.) This ‘Christian’ position in support of same-sex marriage as Christian is merely one manifestation of an ever present liberalism to which Machen’s words are as relevant as the day he originally wrote them.

If you haven’t yet read this book, please do yourself a favor and do so immediately. But in the meantime, allow me to share with you some snippets that I think exemplify this current relevance.

Machen

On standing for and proclaiming the truth.

The type of religion which … shrinks from “controversial” matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life. In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight. (1-2)

The things that are sometimes thought to be hardest to defend are also the things that are most worth defending. (8)

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Notes on Jordan Ballor and Stephen Long on Theology and Economics

Kirk 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.

Read more about this lecture here.

View video of the lectures here.

The following are some thoughts and notes I wrote down during this discussion.

jordan-ballorJordan Ballor // Thesis – That economics and theology are fundamentally compatible and mutually dependent. A continued separation or divorce between economics and theology would be harmful. We need economically informed theologians and theologically informed economists.
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“Carl Henry Was Right” by Richard Mouw

Kirk E. Miller

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

  1. The Bible is critically relevant to the whole of modern life and culture—the social-political arena included.
  2. The institutional church has no mandate, jurisdiction, or competence to endorse political legislation or military tactics or economic specifics in the name of Christ.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.”