Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Bible and Theology

December 10, 2014

Christmas and the Store

Today over at Think Christian I explore how Christmas relates to material goods, and specifically how we are to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matt. 6:33). Continue Reading...
December 03, 2014

The Church’s Witness to an Atomizing Culture

In an increasingly atomizing and alienating culture, what role does the church play in holding the fabric of civilization together? Over at the Evangelical Pulpit, Bart Gingerich offers a hearty response, albeit by way of answering a rather different question: Why do folks abandon the church, particularly those who still believe in Jesus? Continue Reading...
November 24, 2014

Christians: We Are More Alike Than We Are Different

My favorite psychology professor, when I was an undergrad, had a saying: “We are all more alike than we are different.” While most of us would never know the horror of paranoid psychosis, he said, we all know the fear of walking into a room and thinking, “Why is everyone looking at me? Continue Reading...
November 19, 2014

How the Christian Worldview Changes Our Approach to Poverty

Christianity sets forth that humans are made in the image of God — that we have particular God-like characteristics when it comes to creation, cultivation, compassion, relationship, and so on. Such a remarkable truth tells us something deeply profound about the world we live in, as well as how we ought to respond in any number of situations. Continue Reading...
November 17, 2014

Poverty, Family Breakdown, and the Cross

It has become a regular occurrence at conservative publications to note the strong correlation between traditional marriage and family and higher income levels. Take, for example, Ari Fleischer, who wrote the following in the Wall Street Journal last June: If President Obama wants to reduce income inequality, he should focus less on redistributing income and more on fighting a major cause of modern poverty: the breakdown of the family. Continue Reading...
October 29, 2014

The Christian Life between Accommodation and Isolation

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “The Soul of the System,” I examine a number of images and distinctions related to Hunter Baker’s latest book, The System Has a Soul. In describing Herman Bavinck’s images of the kingdom of God as a pearl and a leaven, and a complementary distinction from Abraham Kuyper of the church as an institute and an organism, a question naturally follows about the relationship between each element of the pairings. Continue Reading...