Not long ago I took a walk through the woods. My aim was to get some fresh air and some space from the craziness of life. I wandered for a while through the trees, thick with leaves that valiantly fought to grant me a respite from the oppressive heat. Soon, however, my path led me out into an open expanse and the full intensity of the sun’s attack was upon me. After finally adjusting my vision in this new brightness, I was struck by a realization—the sky I looked upon was blue.
Now, even a child knows that the sky is blue, but children have not yet ceased to ask why. Why is the sky blue? I suddenly wanted to know. But I didn’t want so much to know the scientific answer to the sky’s color, but the spiritual answer. And the thing that really sparked my interest was that…
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One of the more ridiculous confessions of my life came not long ago at a professional development meeting. As I sat in a classroom taking notes, my pen stopped working. This annoyance had happened before, so I knew the proper technique to shake the pen, scribble in the corner, and move on. Yet it didn’t work. I tried again, and again, and sat amazed at my inability to make the pen function. By now I had lost all connection with the presentation that was the subject and motivation for which I was trying to repair my pen in first place. So with my mind now 100% on my pen I gave it the necessary attention to realize that the problem was simple: I had run out of ink.
But here is the ridiculous confession I made to a colleague after the presentation: at the age of 34, this was the…
This past week I had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island. The final paper I attended was not only one of the best of the conference, but also led to some further reflection that I think is helpful for our endeavors in classical Christian education.
This is one of the better books I have read in the Counterpoints series. Each of the four main contributors present their cases well and give substantive feedback and criticism to each other in their responses. Additionally, the inclusion of reflections by Strauss, Wolters, and Wright are an excellent addition to provide further reflection from various perspectives that are not “defending their own view”. The most significant weakness of the book as a whole is stated by Wolters when he points out that at least four distinct categories of moving beyond the Bible to theology are presented by the contributors, but not every author addresses every category. In fact, he shows how Webb deals exclusively in category 2 (ethically troubling injunctions), Vanhoozer alone deals in category 3 (forging theological categories), and Doriani is the only one to deal in category 4 (reception history of a theme). Consequently we get only…
Around this same time, I finished reading the book Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper. In this thoughtful book, Pieper proposes that in order for the perfection of human society, “there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation.”
In his well-known Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his disciples that the road to salvation was narrow and hard, but the way to destruction was wide and easy (Matt 7:13-14). He told his disciples to take up their cross daily and follow him, to follow him on the road to Calvary (Luke 9:23). Jesus told them “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). And the way through Jesus was and is sill the way of the cross. The early church understood the significance of these statements, and early Jewish converts to Christianity called their faith “The Way” (Acts 9:2) before being given the title Christians (Acts 11:26). The Scriptures are replete with similar metaphors. For example, Psalm 1 says, “Blessed is the man who walks…
I’m not very old, so I realize I haven’t seen a large number of presidential elections, but my sense is that we have perhaps never (or at least rarely) found ourselves in the same kind of political climate as we find ourselves today. Whether it’s radio, television, Twitter, or Facebook, opinions abound on what to do about the presidential election in November. I typically don’t weigh in on politics. I didn’t plan to weigh in, at least not in this way, in this election either. Yet seemingly daily I find another high profile Evangelical pledging support for Donald Trump. Moreover, I find seemingly hourly someone telling me that a vote for anyone other than Trump is a vote for Hillary. I try to be patient and gracious and recognize the merit in other people’s positions, even when I heartily disagree, but this rhetoric of a vote for another candidate being a vote for Hillary is getting frustrating. I do understand the concern. I do understand that, in general, voting for someone other than Trump makes Hillary’s election more likely. But that does not mean that I have voted for her. The same cannot be said for Evangelicals who support Trump. If he wins, and he is the kind of president I think he would be (it’s not a pretty picture), then they will have to answer for that vote, because they have issued it for him directly and purposefully.
Kyle D. Rapinchuk 