Mike Wittmer

Category: Christian Worldview

  • homosexual hate speech

    The current advertisement banner of the New York Times website reads, “Dan Savage sends hope to millions of bullied teens.” If you click on the banner, you will watch a short encouragement to gay teenagers that “It gets better.” They may feel picked on and bullied around school, but if they just hang on they’ll…

  • not sure about the new earth

    John Piper interviews Rick Warren about The Purpose Driven Life, and at 36:14 he asks Warren his views about our final destiny. Warren admits that he hasn’t studied this topic as he should, and he isn’t sure whether our resurrected bodies and animals (Is. 65:25) will live forever in heaven or on a new earth. Personally,…

  • the Christian imagination

    I just returned from my colleague Jeremy Grinnell’s doctoral defense on C. S. Lewis’ use of myth. Jeremy, now Dr. Grinnell, has produced an insightful contribution to our understanding of Lewis, the Christian imagination, and the biblical doctrine of the Fall. Best of all, Jeremy’s doktorvater is Neal Plantinga, so you would be hard pressed…

  • Twain on Müller

    I skimmed through volume 1 of Mark Twain’s autobiography—it contains a few good anecdotes about the tribulations of publishing and public speaking—but overall it was not as interesting as I had hoped. Maybe volume 2 will be better. Twain, or Samuel Clemens, didn’t have much good to say about preachers or Christianity, so his short…

  • has God spoken?

    LZ Granderson, a member of Rob Bell’s church and a regular contributor to CNN and ESPN, wrote a column today for CNN.com which illustrates the problem that I try to correct in the first two chapters of Christ Alone. There is a lot that I could say about Granderson’s piece, but I’ll focus on this…

  • keep it light

    Last night I took along a collection of Spurgeon’s writings on death, so I’d have something to read while I waited for my son’s band concert to begin. I forgot how much I enjoyed Spurgeon’s style. Even when his theological conclusions are wrong–such as death for the Christian is actually a cure–his homespun illustrations are…

  • scholastic comedy

    I’m in the middle of the end of semester grading, and here are some interesting comments I’ve seen so far. One paper footnoted the term “the.”  It was obviously a mistake, as there is not a whole lot more information you can give down below. Another sentence read “Notice the tow ‘ifs.’”  To which I…

  • temporary

    I don’t mean this as political commentary, but my initial thought about the tax compromise reached yesterday is how easily temporary becomes permanent.  President Bush was only able to pass his tax cuts because he promised they would be temporary, set to expire at the end of 2010.  Now we’re here, and what once had…

  • Calvin on Brangelina

    I was reading Calvin’s treatise Against the Libertines and came across this powerful section on the necessity of the marriage covenant.  The Libertines were a small and strange sect in Calvin’s day, but their worldview is now widespread in our time.  Most people would not agree with their belief that there is no such thing…

  • the gospel and multi-culturalism

    The new issue of the Calvin Seminary Forum has an intriguing dialogue among Calvin faculty about the Christian Reformed Church’s impending vote (2012) on whether to adopt the Belhar Confession as a fourth confession of faith (alongside the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort). The United Reforming Church in Southern Africa, a…