One of the books I loved most as a boy was my uncle’s copy of the Boy Scout, Handbook for Boys (1948). I loved it because it connected me with my Dad, to my uncle (a lifeguard and a marine), and to . . . Continue reading →
Natural Revelation
Franciscus Junius On Natural Law And The Mosaic Law
Moreover, the law of Moses is an example of the natural law, most suitably expressing the common notions of nature endowed by natural law. For the principles and conclusions of the natural law, that is, those common notions of nature, are perfectly . . . Continue reading →
Heidelberg 91: What Are Good Works? (2)
The source, fountain of good works is true faith. By using this expression, the catechism deliberately takes us back to Heidelberg 21, where true faith is defined and to Heidelberg 60 which are among the several places where true faith is said to be the sole instrument (sola fide) of justification and salvation. True faith is also the instrument of union and communion with Christ and it is the headwaters of the believer’s new, Spirit-wrought life in Christ. In other words, true faith is essential to good works. Continue reading →
Heidelberg 91: What Are Good Works? (1)
he objectively, clearly revealed moral law as the baseline for Christian ethics is essential to Christian living and Christian liberty. James calls it “the law of liberty” (James 1:25) because it frees us from the tyranny of human opinion. It does not answer every question (it does not intend or claim to answer every question) but it is an essential starting place. What must a Christian do in response to God’s grace and in union with Christ? Love God with all his faculties and his neighbor as himself. Continue reading →
Surgery Does Not Change Nature
Dr. Money became the co-founder of one of the first university-based gender clinics in the United States at Johns Hopkins University, where gender reassignment surgery was performed. After the clinic had been in operation for several years, Dr. Paul McHugh, the director . . . Continue reading →
Social Media Puts Us All In A Covenant Of Works
Even before the NSA spying scandal, Zygmunt Bauman studied the contemporary surveillance society in collaboration with sociologist David Lyon, director of the Surveillance Studies Centre. In the digital age, no one could ever be sure they weren’t being monitored—leading to a kind . . . Continue reading →
Homosexuality: Untethered From Natural Law
When I look back on my earlier life, I see the converse is also true. As I first stepped out of the closet in the 1990s, I made a conscious decision to ignore natural law. Once I made that choice, I could . . . Continue reading →
Creational Laws
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, . . . Continue reading →
Because It Is
It’s Not About Equality. It’s About Definitions
Van Til On The Perspicuity Of Natural Revelation
Finally we turn to the perspicuity of nature which corresponds to the perspicuity of Scripture. We have stressed the fact that God’s revelation in nature was from the outset of history meant to be taken conjointly with God’s supernatural communication. This might . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Divine Covenants And Moral Order
In the 16th and 17th centuries, indeed, from the 2nd century until the 20th century there was little question among Christians whether God has revealed his moral law in nature and in the conscience. In the 20th century, however, that verity came to . . . Continue reading →
“Homosexual” And “Homosexuality” In The New Testament
Below are some notes I compiled as part of a broader discussion about how Christians ought to think about homosexuality. The argument was made that the Bible does not really speak clearly to the question of homosexual behavior. In response I offered . . . Continue reading →
And Now For Something Completely Different: Pansexuality
Do you remember a time when politicians were admired for their actions? [Insert sound of crickets chirping here] Texas State Representative Mary Gonzalez is an admirable person. She is the first openly pansexaul politician in American history. If you’re unfamiliar with the . . . Continue reading →
The Gospel Is Not In The Stars
In 1882 the Lutheran minister Joseph A. Seiss (1823–1904) published the provocative volume, The Gospel in the Stars, Or, Prímeval Astronomy (Philadelphia: E. Claxton & company, 1882). Evidently it found an audience and it has been reprinted as recently as the early . . . Continue reading →
What Happens After The End Of Nature?
So why is this gender-bending diversity mandate so prominent at universities these days? The most likely explanation is that it is simply yielding to the demands of the folks who dislike any constraint of human nature in what goes by the LGBTQRSTUW . . . Continue reading →
The Abiding Validity Of The Creational Law In Exhaustive Detail
A correspondent to the HB writes: People can gloss over the term all they want, but secularism is still what it is, a rival religion and ethos to Christianity. The real divide between the FV and anti-FV crowd began with Van Til . . . Continue reading →
The Myth Of Diversity
For all the talk of diversity, today’s politics are extraordinarily uniform. The West lives under a single political regime, managerial liberalism, that combines an emphasis on individual choice and democratic values with domination of social life by experts, functionaries, and commercial interests. . . . Continue reading →
True Philosophy Contains Truth As A Ray Of The Wisdom Of God
Reduced to a system by wise and earnest men
True philosophy, although it also differs very much from the doctrine of the church, yet, it does not array itself against it nor is it a wicked fabrication and device of Satan, as is true of the false doctrines of the sects, . . . Continue reading →
If It’s News Is it Still A Slippery Slope?
Given that, under the American constitution, we do not have a state religion, the types of arguments Christians can realistically expect to make in the civil sphere as it actually exists are limited. We have American history, our Constitution, the Declaration, Supreme Court . . . Continue reading →