Author Archives: admin

‘The Openness of God’

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One of the earlier books seeking to articulate the new paradigm of ‘open theism’ was The Openness of God, by Clark Pinnock et al (1994).  The following year, Christianity Today published a response from Roger Olson, Douglas Kelly, Timothy George and Alister McGrath.

Roger Olson

In open theism, writes Olson,

‘God is no longer to be understood as an immutable monarch controlling human history and individual lives, but rather is to be seen as a self-limiting, loving, and suffering father who allows himself to be affected by his creatures.’

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That’s not what I call preaching 1

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Solomon’s Porch, Minneapolis, is a well-known ’emergent’ church, and Tony Jones one of the best-known leaders of the emergent movement/conversation.

So, we might assume that a recent sermon by Jones at Solomon’s Porch might provide a fair sample of how emergent people set about ‘improving’ the evangelical preaching they so despise.

The example in question is on John 4, a passage which features the account of Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well.  You can read Jones’ own comments on this experience here.…

‘The Nativity’ – too much doubt, not enough joy

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It all came together in last night’s final episode of the BBC’s ‘The Nativity’.

Jupiter, Saturn, and Regulus came together in an improbably brilliant and sudden conjunction.

Mary and Joseph came together in a somewhat contrived joining of hands as she gave birth to her first-born.

The shepherds came together to greet the new baby, as did the three Magi a few moments later.

As with the previous three episodes, there was something rather thoughtful and human about the reactions of the various participants. …

Much ado about ‘The Nativity’

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The Daily Express has melodramatically announced that there is ‘fury over BBC’s nativity insult’:-

The BBC has angered Christians with a TV drama in which the Virgin Mary is branded a prostitute and sex cheat.

Already, there is a danger of too little light being obscured by too much smoke.  The Express only cites one angry Christian – Stephen Green, of Christian Voice.  And I think his criticism is misplaced.

I’ve seen the first three episodes of this drama (the fourth and last is to be broadcast tomorrow). …

Evidentialist and presuppositionalist apologetics

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I suppose that the most wide-recognised form of Christian apologetics is evidentialism.  As practiced by Josh McDowell (Evidence That Demands a Verdict, etc.) and others, this type of apologetics seeks, as the name implies, to pile up historical, scientific, and others kinds of evidence to prove that Christianity is ‘true’.

Presuppositionalist apologetics, on the other hand, insists that the natural mind is so perverse that it is incapable of being converted by evidence and argument. …

What was Asia Bibi’s ‘crime’?

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Asia Bibi is a 45-year-old Christian woman who is behind bars in Pakistan, sentenced to death by hanging, having fallen foul of the blasphemy laws of that country.

What, exactly, was her ‘crime’?  She had been working in the fields when she was asked to fetch drinking water.  Some of the women she was with – all Muslims – refused to drink the water as it had been brought by a Christian and was therefore ‘unclean’. …

Motivational appeal in evangelistic preaching

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In an recent edition of Themelios, D.A. Carson suggests that there are a number of possible motivations that preachers might appeal to, especially when addressing unbelievers.  I summarise:-

1.  Fear.  Although the gospel promises deliverance from fear (Heb 2:14-18), Christ and the apostles did not shrink from warning people of the consequences of unbelief (Mt 10:38; 13:30; 16:26; 22:10-13).  It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31).…

Preacher: butcher or cook?

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Jay Adams puts it well, I think:-

‘Whitehead said, “A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth.”  All of us know how desperately dull preachers can become at imes when they try to teach.  But the transmission of information certainly doesn’t need to be dull.  Rather, it can be exciting and interesting.  Preachers must not become Bible butchers, chopping out great chunks of scriptural meat and throwing them raw and bloody to their congregations as if they were feeding tigers. 

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Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’

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Mention of John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments, popularly known as the Book of Martyrs, has often cropped up in my reading.

I was aware that this book chronicled the persecution of English Protestant reformers by Roman Catholics, and that the work exerted a vast (pro-Protestant, anti-Catholic) influence from the time of its first publication in the 16th century right up until the 20th century.

I probably assumed that it was a work of propaganda, and could not be taken seriously as an historical record. …

A major publishing event in reformed theology

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‘The Theology of B.B. Warfield: a systematic survey‘, by Fred G. Zaspel, IVP/Apollos, 2010.

I acquired most of B. B. Warfield’s writings (in their Presbyterian & Reformed editions) over thirty years ago. ‘The Person and Work of Christ’, for example, was given to me by my fiancee (soon after to become my wife) in 1977; ‘Calvin and Augustine’ was snaffled up while on holiday in Lochgilphead, Scotland, in 1979.

I have always been impressed by Warfield’s lucidity, versatility, spiritual warmth, and biblical faithfulness.…