Category: Uncategorized
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muslims in america
Here is an exceptionally insightful column on the Ground Zero/Muslim mosque/cultural center controversy in today’s New York Times. The last two paragraphs are worth reading very slowly. Update: I am hearing different voices about the mosque in Manhattan–the builder is a moderate, no he’s a radical; there are already mosques in lower Manhattan, so what’s…
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ohio gets it. Go Bucks!
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so funny and true, I call it “funue”
Matt Westerholm mentioned this to me, and Jonathan Shelley just sent me the link. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you may skip church this Sunday. Watch this if you enjoy satire aimed at us.
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summertime
Maybe it’s my Mennonite roots, but I had a vegetable garden long before I knew that it made me a 21st century saint. I have always eaten local and nearly organic, except for the Miracle Gro I use on my pepper plants to help them compete with their southern cousins. This year I planted 70 tomato plants, hoping that…
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baptism
One of the ironies of being a Baptist is that my tradition puts much less weight on baptism than most others. As my friend Dave Lamb said recently, we spend so much time saying what the sacraments/ordinances aren’t that we end up with very little when we’re done. Dave had a word for that, which…
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aha moments
“Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers? Ooohh.” Martin Luther, Thesis 86 (of 95) “But that would mean that Wall Street is nothing but a giant…
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why worry?
God’s job just got a little bit harder.
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faith and regeneration: which comes first?
My desk is temporarily clear of end of semester grading, so I’d like to share my heuristic take on an issue which recently came up in class. Like any good Reformed theologian, I have always argued that regeneration precedes faith. I cut my teeth on Ephesians 2:1-5, which states that “you were dead in your…
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these golden years
Life is tough right now in Michigan, but I heard some encouraging items over the weekend that remind us that life here is better than we think. 1. Alvin Plantinga will soon retire to Grand Rapids to teach part-time at Calvin College. Our fair city will then boast the retired Nicholas Wolterstorff, George Marsden, and…
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eighties rush
Yesterday I was honored to speak in Cornerstone’s chapel, which is a first-rate program run by Matt Westerholm. If you’ve read this site before you know that Matt is very funny and kind of won a Grammy this year, so it won’t surprise you that he introduced me by explaining the plot of “Don’t Stop…
Mike Wittmer 