Mike Wittmer

What I think. What I know. What I think I know.

  • xenophobia

    This excellent article on what ex-gay men can teach us about marriage got me thinking. These thoughts are not fully developed, but I offer what I have in hopes that someone might be able to correct or add to them. Our culture’s highest value seems to be inclusion—no matter what, we must love the other.…

  • ardent Arminians

    Last night I preached on predestination from Romans 9, which reminded me again of Charles Wesley’s anti-Calvinist hymn, “The Horrible Decree.” It’s hard to imagine anyone singing all 15 stanzas, even to the tune of Gilligan’s Island, but you can read the entire thing here. Wesley’s passion for Arminianism seems equal to John Piper’s commitment…

  • Psmith

    A couple of weeks ago I took Doug Wilson’s advice in his inspiring little book on writing, Wordsmithy. Not the advice that inspired Jim Hamilton to write limericks about his family vacation: There once was a professor named Jim, Who took his fam on vacation with him. He brought his sweet wife, Oh, what a…

  • fork in the road

    I’m already weary of the gay marriage debate issue (the debate seems to be over), though I am sure it’s an issue we’re not going to be able to ignore, and here’s why. These are two links from CNN, one which reports that last Friday the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America elected its first openly…

  • whose justice? whose morality?

    I awoke this morning with a thought experiment that might be interesting to try out. When someone says that opposition to same sex marriage is immoral (or disrespectful, demeaning, unjust, unloving, or whatever term they might use), ask them how they know this. On what basis is it immoral? They can’t just say it’s obvious,…

  • tertullus

    Last night our family read Acts 24, in which the lawyer Tertullus brought this charge against Paul:  “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him”…

  • marriage

    I just saw the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA, and while I appreciate the argument from the homosexual perspective (I’d be angry too if I had to pay an estate tax when in my mind I was married to my partner), it seems to be the further unraveling of the meaning of marriage. I don’t…

  • metadiscourse on sports

    If LeBron James winning back to back championships proves anything, it’s that there is a God and for some reason He really, really hates Cleveland. Akron did get a shout out from LeBron after the game, but only to remind the world that a kid with his humble beginnings had come a long way. I’m…

  • God’s good world?

    We’ve waited a long time for a worthy successor to Langdon Gilkey’s theology of creation, Maker of Heaven and Earth, so I was excited to read Jonathan Wilson’s new book, God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation (Baker). Unfortunately, I think we’re still waiting. The book is a solid piece of scholarship suited for…

  • forum on the mound

    My family just returned from a week in Myrtle Beach–a time to celebrate my parents’ golden anniversary with my three brothers and their families–and last night I unpacked enough to attend Forum on the Mound. This is an exciting event put on by several area churches for college age youth at Fifth Third Ballpark. We…