Fear is a fearful thing. It can cause blindness. It can undermine our rationality. It can make us shoot our wife or betray our country. It can be both a symptom and a cause of unfaithfulness to our God.
Category Archives: Faith and politics
The oldest biblical political principle; or, How I learned to stop worrying and love libertarianism
Discovered and revealed! The Bible verse that clearly and irrefutably establishes small-government libertarianism as THE biblical principle governing economics and politics for Christians.
My mouth filled with blessing: Psalm 34 as rule of life
What would it mean to take the first three verses of Psalm 34 as an individual and communal rule of life?
Jesus, the Lordists, and the flash flood (Luke 6:46–49)
We have lived in the beautiful foundationless house, and we have seen the flash flood. Now what?
Reading Psalm 102 on Inauguration Day
We are given another opportunity to love our neighbor as ourselves, which must in the final analysis from a godly, biblical perspective be the sole aim and justification for participating in politics.
Being, having, doing: theological roots of political disaster
How a weakness in recent popular evangelical theology produces a susceptibility to mythic history and fascistic politics.
Choosing leaders (Luke 6:12–16)
Luke, like Matthew and Mark, tells of Jesus’s selecting twelve of his disciples for a special roles in service-leadership. John doesn’t bother with the appointment of this dozen. (See Matthew 10:1–4; Mark 3:13–19.) Luke tells it a little differently than Matthew and Mark. Like Mark, he tells us that Jesus went up a mountain toContinue reading “Choosing leaders (Luke 6:12–16)”
Jesus and the Make Israel Holy Again movement
We keep rereading scripture (and other classic texts, but I’m especially interested in scripture) because they strike us differently as our own circumstances change. This morning Luke 6:6–11, which in some seasons has just been for me a Standard Bible Story, smacked me. There was a startling, then painful, recognition, not as in “Oh, IContinue reading “Jesus and the Make Israel Holy Again movement”
An open letter to the president of Wheaton College
An open letter to the president of Wheaton College.
Fearing and laughing: Psalm 52 and the demise of Trump
The more usual, expected phrase is “fear and trembling.” But there comes a time for fear and laughing. Psalm 52 contemplates the fate of the powerful person who is evil and boastful, contrasting it with the faithfulness of God toward the righteous, meaning the people who live in covenant relationship with God.
Verba Sparsa 