Mike Wittmer

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

  • freshman foundation

    Our new provost at Cornerstone University, Rick Ostrander, has written an essential introduction to Christian education which every Christian young person should read.  Why College Matters to God explains the history of Christian higher education, analyzes such education through the worldview grid of creation, fall, and redemption, and closes with important thoughts on the integration…

  • that ’80s show

    Pete Scribner has demonstrated that a) he has a lot of free time and b) it is possible to cheapen the doctrines of grace by describing them with song titles from the 80’s.  Here is how Tulip would look if it had been composed as a power ballad: Total Eclipse of the Heart: The Doctrine…

  • enlarge my borders (and start with this blog)

    My present study of evangelical fideism led me yesterday to revisit the gift book that rocked our pre-9/11 world, the “little prayer with the giant prize” (17), The Prayer of Jabez. I first noticed 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 in 1989 when Howard Hendricks used it as an example of the importance of observation in my hermeneutics…

  • protestant tetzels

    In honor of the indulgence seller Johann Tetzel whose famous jingle “When the coin in the coffer clings a soul from purgatory springs” angered Martin Luther and helped to ignite the Reformation,  here is a N Y Times article which demonstrates that buying salvation never went away, it just went Protestant.  My friend and student…

  • adventures in fideism

    I am enjoying our first and perhaps last full week of summer in Michigan (every day sunny and in the 80s), so I am trying to get outdoors as much as possible. Since I don’t have a research assistant, and if I did he or she would be at the beach anyway, I’d like to…

  • do either of these work for you?

    Thank you all for your help on my last post.  I would like to explain my thinking for each of these titles, but since I won’t have that opportunity in real life, here goes.  With apologies to Eddie Van Halen, does anyone have any noteworthy reaction to either of these?  1. Don’t Jump:  How Doubt…

  • leap of faith

    I want to research something but it’s summer and I don’t want to waste my one warm weekend of the year in the library, so could those of you who are willing and have an opinion answer two questions for me? 1. What does a “leap of faith” mean to you?  What words or phrases…

  • a fool and his money are easily parted

    My friend was doing a tile job for a wealthy doctor who lives in a gated community on a hill overlooking Amway valley.  When he asked the doctor’s wife why their ’74 Fiat (16,000 miles) was no longer in the garage, she said that her husband had decided to trade it towards a Mini Cooper…

  • evangelical ecclesiology

    Mark Noll, the former Wheaton historian who is now teaching at Notre Dame, jokes that “The main difference between us and the Catholics is ecclesiology. They have one and we don’t.” There is a new book which seeks to remedy that, and I am so taken with it that I’ll be using it as a…

  • ask us how we defeated global warming

    Grand Rapids just completed our coldest July ever. Our average temperature for the month was 67.1 degrees. We never went above 84. Three days didn’t climb out of the 60’s. We did receive plenty of sunshine (63% of what was available), so lack of sunlight was not the issue. Actually, unless you enjoy swimming at…