Review: If I Had Lunch with C. S. Lewis
A review of If I Had Lunch with C. S. Lewis: Explaining the Ideas of C. S. Lewis on the Meaning of Life,* by Alister McGrath, Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2014, 241 pages, hdbk.
Church History/Christian History
The Reformation at 500: The Papal Bull (Part 1)
In September of 2017, my wife Lynnette and I were privileged to visit the land of Germany and tour the sites of the Reformation in celebration of its 500th anniversary.
The trip was memorable—even life-changing—for a number of reasons.
First of all, the trip was given to us by our friends at Grace Bible Church, in Portage, Wis., where I had served as interim pastor for nearly two years. Suffice it to say that we will never forget all that that congregation did for us.
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Tim Miller reviews Thomas Kidd's “Who Is an Evangelical?”
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“Kidd has shown that the term evangelical has lost much of its doctrinal meaning….And though he does not make this explicit, I think he has shown that the movement has done its best when it has focused on doing what it has been called to do (evangelize, emphasize personal lives of holiness) rather than when it has sought political power.” - Tim Miller
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3 Models of Heaven in the Early Church
Lately, I have been reading a book called A History of Heaven by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang. I am fascinated with their 22-page chapter, “Irenaeus and Augustine on our Heavenly Bodies.”
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What Did DC Churches Do When the Spanish Flu Struck Again?
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“A very different response is found in Rev. Francis J. Grimke…. Grimke acknowledged that there was some ‘considerable grumbling’ regarding the closing of churches. But he also offers a defense: ‘The fact that the churches were places of religious gathering, and the others not, would not affect in the least the health question involved.
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Justification and Martin Luther
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“He believed the Church when it taught that a believing sinner received the grace of justification through the sacraments as he did his part to cooperate and become righteous. And this is what kept tripping Luther up – his part was never good enough.” - Ref 21
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“Donne has often been described as a poet of death.... but he didn't stop there”
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“The famous sentences ‘No man is an island’ and ‘the bell tolls [for] thee’ are excerpted from the same meditation: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
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A Christian History of Pandemics
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“Church history is intertwined with plagues. Read about what healthcare looked like during the Roman Empire, how Christian communities responded to outbreaks like the Black Death by persecuting Jews, and how the modern church approached the AIDS crisis.” - CT
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The Church’s 2000 Years of Experience in Handling Epidemics
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“Not only have Christians cared for their neighbors during plague times–Stone also cites the example and words of Luther that we have been blogging about–they also pioneered principles of hygiene to prevent further infections” - Gene Veith
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How DC Churches Responded When the Government Banned Public Gatherings During the Spanish Flu of 1918
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1918: “DC churches responded by calling an emergency meeting of the Protestant ministers….they ‘voted unanimously to accede to the request of the District Commissioners that churches be closed in the city.’ As The Evening Star reported the next day that the ‘Pastors Federation of Washington’ would comply with and support the safety measures called for by the city.” -
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