The decision we face

At last, Election Day arrives and we will soon (we sincerely hope) know the results of the 2024 presidential election. I’ll start by putting my cards ...

December 4, 2024

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Another Shooting, But the Same Vexing Questions Remain

One day before the one-year anniversary of the killing of twenty-six in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, an 18-year-old young man entered the high school at which he was a student in suburban Denver on Friday and shot two students before ...

December 16, 2013

Moral Mayhem Multiplied—Now, It’s Polygamy’s Turn

As most Americans were thinking thoughts of Christmas cheer, a federal judge in Utah dropped a bomb on the institution of marriage, striking down the most crucial sections of the Utah statute outlawing polygamy. Last Friday, Judge Clark Waddoups of t ...

December 16, 2013

On Them Has Light Shined—The Christian Minister as Torchbearer

Christmas feels like the perfect time for a seminary commencement ceremony. What could be more fitting than to send out a new band of Gospel preachers just as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and declare the great announcement of the incarnatio ...

December 13, 2013

America and the Culture of Vulgarity—No End in Sight

The collapse of the barrier between popular culture and decadence has released a toxic mudslide of vulgarity into the nation's family rooms—and just about everywhere else. There is almost no remote corner of this culture that is not marked by the tol ...

December 12, 2013

A Moral Revolution at Warp Speed—Now, It’s Wedding Cakes

Six months. That's how long it took to get from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act to the decision of a Colorado judge ordering a Christian baker to make a cake for a same-sex ceremony. Just six months. Bac ...

December 11, 2013

Nelson Mandela and the Ironies of History

On Thursday, South African President Jacob Zuma announced the death of Nelson Mandela at age 95. One of the most significant and vital figures of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela became known not only as the father of his nation, but as the father of ...

December 7, 2013

A Theology of Action: Owen Strachan on “Risky Gospel”

One of the most lamentable symptoms of today's emotionalist Christianity is its tendency to inaction. We can trace this symptom to any number of causes, and most of them are theological. Many Christians suffer from warped understandings of the will o ...

December 5, 2013

Thinking about Thinking about Rap — Unexpected Thoughts over Thanksgiving

Over the past few days the evangelical community has been talking about the kinds of things you would expect -- the meaning of Thanksgiving, the turn to the Christmas season, the fact that some stores were opening on Thanksgiving Day and the various ...

December 1, 2013

Their Abortions—What Do These Abortion Testimonies Really Reveal?

A signal event in America's long trial over the tragedy of abortion occurred this week with the publication of a cover story in New York magazine that was simply titled, "My Abortion." As the cover advertises, the article features "twenty-six persona ...

November 15, 2013

As One with Authority: The Mandate of Biblical Exposition

At the 2013 Expositors Summit at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I preached on Matthew 7:28-29. In that passage, the crowds were astonished at the preaching of Jesus, who preached as one with authority, and not as their scribes. The Christ ...

November 11, 2013