Mike Wittmer

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

  • another good review

    Here is an insightful review from St. Andrews that makes one of the big points that I argue for in Christ Alone—i.e., that Rob Bell’s project is really a dated form of Christian existentialism that goes back to Tillich and Niebuhr. I think this is the key to understanding what Love Wins is up to, and I commend this…

  • 13 signs your sermon isn’t going well

    I posted this before, but many of my new readers haven’t seen this, and it fits with the first law of blogging: humor always attracts more hits than serious. So, in a shameless attempt to boost my blog traffic for one day, here is a “Top Ten List” I created for our seminary banquet a few years ago…

  • 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…

  • really?

    Summer school has consumed my energy these past two weeks, but I wanted to comment on a couple of strange items in the week’s news. 1. Anthony Weiner apologized to Bill Clinton?! Bet you didn’t see that one coming. 2. Clinton’s people say that the former president is genuinely miffed at Weiner, because Weiner’s wife…

  • China praise and prayer

    I haven’t had the energy or time to post new entries during summer school, but I just read this encouraging article about the rise of Christianity in China in Time magazine. I taught English in the university district of Beijing from 1990-92, and I can hardly imagine the phenomenal growth of the Shouwang church there.…

  • ohio sports

    Think you’re having a bad day? Pity the poor guy trying to sell this. On the bright side, tomorrow night Akron’s favorite son takes the first step toward his inevitable NBA championship, and the Cleveland Indians, though having lost three of their last four games, are still the best team in baseball. The people most excited about this…

  • the Bible says

    This week Jeff Cook posted a response to the trailer for Francis Chan’s upcoming response book to Rob Bell’s book. I’m not sure why it’s acceptable to respond to one book’s trailer and not another’s, and I’m not even sure why they call them trailers (usually a trailer follows along behind—if your trailer is out…

  • can your city do this?

    Last year in a fit of irony Newsweek claimed that Grand Rapids was a dying city. Since Newsweek knows what it feels like to be dying, we took this claim seriously. Here is our response (credit goes to Rob Bliss, who put this together).

  • 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,…

  • this makes sense

    Thanks to Pete Scribner, who alerted me to this “final solution.” http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:onionsportsnetwork.com:377752 Onion SportsDome