Twenty years ago, my dad and I passed an afternoon in Southern California by attending a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners. We are Chicago Cubs fans, so we were used to watching baseball played by a terrible team in a packed stadium. But in Oakland, we found the very opposite: aContinue reading “Some Passing Thoughts on Baseball’s Hall of Fame”
Tag Archives: Justice
Book Review: Did God Really Command Genocide? (Copan and Flannagan)
Any contemporary reader who picks up the Bible will be struck by the seeming divide between the God of Jesus Christ and the God who commands the destruction of whole nations and the obliteration of Canaanites during Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. And while many Christians simply don’t think about the possible difficulties ofContinue reading “Book Review: Did God Really Command Genocide? (Copan and Flannagan)”
Book Review: The Reason for My Hope (Graham)
Few people have shaped contemporary Christianity more than Billy Graham. Though not as active, popular, or visible as he once was, Graham’s decades of evangelism, writing, and preaching continue to influence Christians around the world. Even in retirement, Graham continues to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. It was thus withContinue reading “Book Review: The Reason for My Hope (Graham)”
Book Review: God’s Problem (Ehrman)
In God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Questions—Why We Suffer (Harper One: New York, 2008), Bart D. Ehrman examines the various explanations for suffering presented in the text of the Christian Bible. Ehrman, a New Testament Textual Scholar and James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the UniversityContinue reading “Book Review: God’s Problem (Ehrman)”
Book Review: The Skeletons in God’s Closet (Butler)
Can God really be good? Will God really judge all non-Christians? How can you believe in a God who commanded genocide? These are questions which many people—many Christians—struggle to honestly answer, queries which have caused people to walk away from the Christian faith, problems that have eroded many hearts and minds. And, lest we beContinue reading “Book Review: The Skeletons in God’s Closet (Butler)”
Book Review: The Joy of the Gospel (Pope Francis)
Few people alive today are more popular and polarizing than Pope Francis. No one seems sure quite how to respond to the Bishop of Rome, nor are they sure whose side (if any) he is taking in ongoing theological and cultural debates. Sensational media claims about Francis “revolutionizing” the Catholic faith are overblown, to beContinue reading “Book Review: The Joy of the Gospel (Pope Francis)”
What About People Who Died Before the Incarnation?
A while back, a friend wrote me and asked, “How do you justify [and explain] the people who died before Christ came [i.e., Abraham, Moses, David]?” This struck me as an important and insightful question. In our rush to talk about and theologize heaven and hell, we often pay little attention to people who wouldContinue reading “What About People Who Died Before the Incarnation?”
Pursuing Veritas 