Mike Wittmer

Category: Ethics

  • the brotherhood of man

    I watched five minutes of the interminable Super Bowl pregame show, but the brief segment I saw included the cast of several NBC shows performing a Broadway song and dance called “The Brotherhood of Man.” In our day of gender inclusivity, when Bible translators worry that masculine pronouns might offend female readers, when professors tell…

  • Arab Spring

    Tomorrow my Apologetics class is going to examine Islam, so today we went to Calvin’s January Series to hear Rezla Aslan speak on “The Future of the New Middle East.” Aslan is the Iranian-born author of No god but God, and while I’m pretty sure he doesn’t share my views on many topics, he is…

  • the ultimate question

    One of the big stories in Grand Rapids in 2011 was the November passing of Fred Meijer. The newspaper account of his funeral inspired this draft for Our Daily Journey. As always, your helpful suggestions are appreciated.        Fred Meijer was one of the wealthiest men in the world. His Meijer stores were the first to combine…

  • was Paul an exclusivist?

    I want to thank you who commented on “the Achilles heel of inclusivism” post. It’s unusual to have such a civil conversation on the Internet, where people frankly express their views while respecting those who disagree with them. I have benefited from the discussion, and want to thank everyone for the way it was conducted.…

  • ironic racism

    Everyone knows that it’s impolite to make fun of the way other ethnicities look and speak, but some comedians have found a loophole. If you have a racist bit that really kills, you can still do it as long as you do it ironically. For instance, Stephen Colbert periodically breaks into his Chinese character, Ching…

  • intergenerational warfare

    I don’t agree with everything in this Washington Post essay, but it aptly depicts the frustration of young people with their parents’ generation. Others reported last week that the median net worth of retirees is $173,000, while people in their twenties have only about $3,000 to their name. It’s unlikely that these underemployed young people…

  • forgive me

    My classes have been interacting with Chris Brauns’ careful and thorough guide, Unpacking Forgiveness. Forgiveness is a rabbit hole topic, for sometimes the more you think about it the more confusing it gets. Must the person repent before you can forgive them? What if their repentance is not sincere? If you suspect they aren’t sincere,…

  • til’ Alzheimers we do part

    Russell Moore powerfully critiques Pat Robertson’s comment that a person with Alzheimer’s disease is essentially dead, so their spouse would be free to divorce them and remarry. I would add that Robertson seems to subscribe to a Platonic (and Cartesian) dualism, assuming that a person’s mind is essentially them, so that if their mind is…

  • golden handcuffs

    Here is a devotional I just wrote for Our Daily Journey. As always, I would appreciate any constructive feedback before I submit it. Thanks! Friends of mine are acquainted with a media leader. He invited them to appear on his television show to talk about a family tragedy, and he was so impressed by their…

  • it’s here

    Many of us have been saying for some time that the normalization of homosexual marriage will inevitably open the door to the state’s acceptance of polygamy. Proponents of gay marriage typically scoff and say we’re silly for making such a slippery slope argument. Well, not anymore. In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, Jonathan…