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Quotes on justice

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‘I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.’ (Thomas Jefferson)

‘Truth is justice’s handmaid; freedom is its child, peace is its companion; safety walks in its steps; victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the gospel; it is an attribute of God.’ (Sydney Smith)

Injustice, suave, erect, and unconfined, Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o’er mankind, While prayers to heal her wrongs move slow behind. Homer

‘By largely ignoring the central biblical teaching that God is on the side of the poor, our theology has been profoundly unorthodox.…

Top 200 Church Blogs

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Back in September, Kent Shaffer published a list of ‘Top 200 Church Blogs’.

Although based on statistical popularity, questions have been asked about how the short list was drawn up (Shaffer just says that ‘several hundred’ were reviewed for ‘preliminary screening’ but doesn’t explain how these were identified.  It is clear that the list contains many of the best-known blogs, but there is no way of telling how many equally popular blogs have been omitted.

It has been observed that the list features

  • a relatively high proportion of Reformed writers
  • a low number of women
  • a diminishing representation from the ’emerging churches’

‘Walking With Giants’ isn’t anywhere on the list, but then I’ve done very little to publicise this blog.  …

Providence

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Providence may be defined as

that continued exercise of the divine energy whereby the Creator preserves all his creatures, is operative in all that comes to pass in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end. (Berkhof)

The doctrines of creation and providence are inseparably connected: the same God who made all things continues to sustain them moment by moment.

God’s providence is all-encompassing, Psa 115:3; Mt 10:30; Eph 1:11.  Natural events, such as the wind and the rain, are part of his ordering, even though these can sometimes lead to disaster, Lk 13:1-5.…

Galileo

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As everyone knows, it was Copernicus who made the epoch-making discovery that the earth revolves around the sun, and not vice-versa.  The epoch that was ushered in by this discovery was the age of modern science.  The earth was demoted from the centre of the universe to a speck of dust in a vast cosmos, and reason was enthroned as the all-conquering victor.  The Christian church, so the story goes, tried it hardest to cling on to superstition and to frustrate the progress of science.…

One language, two religions

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It was J. Gresham Machen, in Christianity and Liberalism, who commented that thorough-going theological liberalism is actually a different religion from orthodox Christianity.  It is, in fact, a different kind of religion.

This observation was borne out in a recent discussion on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable? show between Ben Witherington III and Stephen Thornton.  Ben is an evangelical biblical scholar, Stephen a retired URC minister of liberal persuasion.

The topic under consideration was the narratives of Jesus’ birth as recorded in Matthew and Luke. …

A typology for science and religion

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Various models have been proposed for understanding the relationship between science and religion.  Some see the relationship as essentially one of incompatibility, or even conflict.  Others see it as more harmonious.

1. Science replaces religion

According to this view, religion belongs to the intellectual infancy of the human race.  Theology was a largely failed attempt to make sense of things.  Science now gives us a rational method for understanding things in terms of natural processes.

The view was popularised by John Draper and Andrew Dickson White.  …

Justice, equality, and fairness

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Justice is often assumed to be the same as equality.  We treat people with justice, it is argued, when we treat them equally.

But it’s not quite as simple as that.  Even in a court of law, two criminals may have commited exactly the same crime, and yet each receive a different punishment, because the judges see that different circumstances and motives apply.

Similarly in the home.  If two children are fighting, a parent may send them to their bedroom as a punishment. …

Demons, ghosts, and Jesus

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For those who accept the metaphysical reality of daimons (I’m using a straight transliteration of the Greek, in order to place at a bit of distance the baggage that tends to accompany the word ‘demons’) the conventional idea is that they belong to an order of created, malevolent, non-corporeal beings.

The popular conception a ghost is that it is the spirit of a dead human being.

Peter Bolt has provided solid documentary evidence to show that for many people living at the time of Jesus, ‘daimon’ would have been virtually synonymous with ‘ghost’.…

On going to church, anyway

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In some ways, the concept of ‘going to church’ is not a very biblical one.  The idea of travelling to a ‘church’ in order to ‘worship’ is not quite what the Bible means either by ‘church’ or by ‘worship’.

Still, there are mentions within the pages of the New Testament of believers meeting together on the first day of the week, and of gathering as local congregations in one another’s homes.  And the writer to the Hebrews urges his readers not to give up meeting together (Heb 10:25).…