NEW FLF Course by CR Wiley on Tom Bombadil
In the House of Tom Bombadil Starts January 12 Every Wednesday 5pm-7pm Pacific time, for 7 weeks Register today! Who is the mysterious and apparently ridiculous Tom Bombadil? How did he manage to get into The Lord of the Rings? There’s been a lot of speculation, but most of it isn’t very convincing. Some critics […]
Reviewing Shai Linne’s The New Reformation
By Levi Secord Recently, I’ve seen many positive comments about Shai Linne’s new book, The New Reformation: Finding Hope in the Fight for Ethnic Unity. Some portrayed it as a third way between the extremes of the woke and the anti-woke crowds. Naturally, such comments caught my attention, and I ordered a copy. As a […]
Cynical Theories: A Christian Review
By Levi Secord In Cynical Theories, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay issue a stinging rebuke of critical theory, and its various twisted children, by exposing its reliance on postmodernism. This book is aptly named, as these theories are cynical in the worst ways. These theories spread like the most malignant cancer—leaving desolation wherever they go. […]
Forgiveness Conquers a Dystopian World: Review of Ride, Sally, Ride
By Jesse Sumpter This book is the story for 2020. The plot is about as bizarre as 2020. And after so much craziness in 2020, even the bizarre plot of this novel doesn’t seem that implausible. I won’t spoil the story in this review so I encourage you to get your hands on it as […]
Will someone love Aimee Byrd?
By Joseph Spurgeon Titus 1:10-11 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. Let me begin by getting straight to the point of this article. Aimee […]
Jim, I’m a Pastor not a Doctor: Feminism, Aimee Byrd, and Mark Jones
By Joseph Spurgeon Titus 2:15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. Feminism ruins everything. Everywhere that it raises its rebellious head, harm is soon to follow. Whether it was the willful deception of Eve overturning the created order in her rebellion or her daughters trying to […]
Book Review: The Book that Made your World by Vishal Mangalwadi
By Jesse Sumpter Vishal Mangalwadi, a Christian from India, has written a number of books. One of his recent ones is The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization. In it, he recounts his experience growing up in India and how different the Indian culture is from the […]
Doug Wilson Books: Best Reading Order
By Jesse Sumpter Sadly, No Quarter November is starting to wind down. On the other hand, you have all those great Doug Wilson books and now you need to decide which order to read them in. Here is a recommended order to do that. As you look at this list, you will see that some […]
Interview with Author K.M. Weiland – Character Arcs
K.M. Weiland, author of historical and speculative fiction as well as books on the craft of writing, joins us from western Nebraska. Thanks so much for joining us at The Westminster Confession of Funk. It is a real pleasure to be able to ask you a few questions about your work on Creating Character Arcs. […]
Interview with Remy Wilkins, Author of Strays
Thanks for joining us at The Westminster Confession of Funk. And thank you for such a delightfully named blog. It’s always been one of my favorite names. Your novel Strays, what’s it about? What inspired the story? It’s about a boy named Rodney who has to spend the summer at his weird uncle’s and gets […]
The Whirlwind Bides His Time
Having recently had The Rev. Joseph Carlson as a Guest on the recent episode of CrossPolitic, I thought it might be nice to get one of his sonnets before you. This is for the 24th Sunday of the Trinity Season in his book of Sonnets for the Church Year. Waiting Four hundred years – the […]
The Secular Reformation?
The Reformation: A History By Diarmaid MacCulloch Penguin Books, 2005 When Protestants celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation last year, we weren’t the only ones cheering. Other celebrants included cheerleaders of the modern secular state. This may seem strange at first–if so, it is instructive to read Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation: A History, certainly […]
Original Sin: A Cultural History (Book Review)
G.K. Chesterton once wrote that original sin was “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” His thinking here is that we are not confronted every day with virgin births or resurrections, but the evidence of human frailty is all around us. In the last few months, in this country alone, we’ve […]
Rob Bell’s “What Is the Bible” Part 5
It’s common these days for heretical teachers to point out something that is clearly in the text of Scripture and then act as if there is some kind of misty significance to it all that those truncated fundie Bible teachers must have missed. Then when all is said and done, the teacher will draw just […]
Rob Bell’s “What Is the Bible?” Part 4
Given what Bell has said so far about the Bible, a brief excursus about the doctrine of Scripture would be helpful. As I have pointed out, one of Bell’s problems is that he will simply not accept some things that the Bible says, especially what the Bible says about itself. Several salient points should be […]
David Foster Wallace and the Worldly Perils of Entertainment
A Christian’s Introduction to David Foster Wallace, Part 1 When I read the Parable of the Sower, I often feel like the young plant sown among thorns. I am beset every day precisely by the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, not so much the “trouble or persecution” Christ refers to in […]
Six Day Creationism and Evolution
Most of us have been pulled over by a cop. Imagine for a moment that this happens to you. The cop flashes his lights, you dutifully pull over, hand over your license and registration. He informs you that he pulled you over because you didn’t stop at the stop sign. You respond with, “But officer, […]
Rob Bell’s “What is the Bible?” Part 3
In chapter one, “Moses and His Moisture,” Bell sets a precedent for how he argues in for the rest of the book. The two biggest problems he has are that, with a single exception in the whole book, he does not provide any citation for obscure cultural or linguistic facts he refers to, and he […]
The Anatomy of Peace
Pictured in a group counselling session of parents with problem children, The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict proposes that many people seeking to deal with conflict increase it. It creates a window into the lives of several couples—Lou and Carol at the center—in order to discuss situations which sound familiar to the […]
Rob Bell’s “What is the Bible?” Part 2
In the introduction to “What is the Bible?” Bell clearly indicates he is a fan of good exegesis and scholarship. “So I went to seminary, and I studied Greek and Hebrew (the two languages the Bible was originally written in), and I studied history and hermeneutics and exegesis and form and textual criticism— all so […]