Between the Trees

Last weekend I picked up Tim Keller’s new book The Reason for God. I’ve been reading it all week, and thought I’d post some thoughts.
First of all, I am not an apologetics hound. While I appreciate those who feel a deep mission to defend the faith, I find that all too often defenses of Christianity [...]

“We are not in control of our lives. We are all living for something and we are controlled by that, the true lord of our lives. If it is not God, it will endlessly oppress us. It is only grace that frees us from the slavery of self that lurks even in the middle of [...]

These are the sorts of stories that make me glad to be a history major.
So in the 1920s during Prohibition organized crime became really big because everybody still wanted their booze but they had to find new mean of obtaining it. This also meant that people who made their own alcohol at home could now [...]

(On a side note - when I look at the word “eighth” it always looks like it’s spelled wrong…)
For the 8th session, I went to another workshop on hospitality, this time with Margie Haack. I already referenced her and husband’s ministry Ransom Fellowship in a prior post. If you haven’t yet, you really must stop [...]

Macquarrie perhaps means to suggest that the very practice of science requires that one reject the idea (e.g.) of God raising someone from the dead…[This] argument…is like the drunk who insisted on looking for his lost car keys only under the streetlight on the grounds that the light was better there. In fact, it would [...]

I was just listening to a clip by D. A. Carson discussing Rob Bell and Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, and it was intriguing. He essentially argues that what Bell is doing in GR only works because its a middle-of-the-country, Dutch Reformed city, and that Bell’s methods would fall flat on its face. [...]

Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda. This cry of the Reformation roughly translates as “the church reformed, always reforming.” Lately I seem to keep encountering references to it, and I wanted to write a few thoughts about what it does (and doesn’t) mean and how the call to be always reforming should actually look in the church [...]

The seventh session was another talk by John Mason Hodges on the topic of “How Then Shall We Live Revisited.” This was another talk I really want to take more time to process. I think Hodges had some excellent comments and I felt challenged at many points throughout his talk, however the talk was talking [...]

The sixth session I went to was by Andrew Fellows’, a worker at the English L’Abri, discussing the challenges of hospitality in our contemporary culture. This was one of my favorite workshops of the weekend. Fellows is engaging, witty, and challenging and all three of those traits were apparent in both his workshops. (He also [...]

For the fifth session of the conference, Denis Haack spoke on film and comedy. For those unfamiliar with Denis and his wife Margie’s ministry, Ransom Fellowship, you must check it out. Ransom is a ministry that attempts to help Christians think biblically about culture. They offer film reviews, music reviews, and other helpful resources on [...]