Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 24, 2011, 4:00 pm
We’ve officially launched our civitatedei.com website on its own server, all the posts and comments have moved there, so you should go there.
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 24, 2011, 3:06 pm
So here’s the deal. I’m a theological mutt. I’m all over the map. I’m Reformed, but not five points. I love the new perspective on Paul. I have a view of baptism and the sacraments that would make R. Scott Clark wet his paints (that’s a good thing). But, I’m also a charismatic. Sam Storm...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 23, 2011, 3:14 pm
Given that I just posted on contentment a few days ago, I was pleased to discover Peter Leithart posting on the topic today: Contentment is a spiritual challenge, but it is also something of a puzzle. Scripture urges us to hope, but how do hope and contentment fit together?  How is contentment com...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 17, 2011, 2:39 pm
Steve Hays recently wrote a post analyzing Peter Singer’s (the infamous advocate for infanticide) arguments about poverty. To briefly sum it up: Singer argues on a strictly utilitarian principle that every dollar earned beyond what someone absolutely needs should be given to the poor. No doubt, ev...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 16, 2011, 11:14 pm
For my devotions, I’ve been reading through Thomas Watson’s The Art of Divine Contentment. Here is something I’ve been feasting on over the past few days: Wicked men are often disquieted in the enjoyment of all things; the contented Christian is well in the want of all things. But how comes ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 16, 2011, 9:06 am
Michael Coren recently hosted an important panel on the experience of Christians in the Islamic world, especially in Egypt. It’s downright appalling. This was brought to my attention over the past two weeks as some of the students I teach are Coptic and have been directly affected by the recent bo...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 16, 2011, 8:26 am
A motivational speaker demonstrates the power of believing in yourself ….
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 15, 2011, 2:41 pm
Serving up some tasty links on a snowy day: Thankfully, economists don’t design highways. Who is really on the margins? A debate ensues. The limits of neuroscience. Another story on Protestants converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. (I’m curious whether this phenomenon is real or just one of those...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 14, 2011, 8:10 am
Woody is Lutheran Church, Missouri-Synod. His bride, Kelly, is not. Hilarious:
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 13, 2011, 1:28 pm
So in order launch into my reading of the institutes I reckoned it would make sense to read all the various prefaces first. (Well, not all of them, I skipped the 50-or-so pages of stuff from later translators and so on and decided to start with Calvin’s own words of introduction.) Of course the va...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 13, 2011, 1:38 am
One of Vern Poythress’ maxims of symphonic theology is preempting the strong points of opponents: As we saw under the previous maxim, sometimes we are dealing with outright error, not just a harmonizable difference of viewpoint. In such cases, it is often worthwhile trying to figure out what othe...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 12, 2011, 10:53 pm
I was watching YouTube clips of Mad Men and it struck me that if Don Draper was born 50 years later, he could have been a megachurch pastor. Here is my evidence: In the above scene Don spins a slogan out of a standard aspect of tobacco production that valorizes one brand over the others for somethi...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 12, 2011, 10:49 pm
And people actually wonder why the Anglican church is on the decline. Pastors that pull crap like this should be horsewhipped.
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 9, 2011, 7:32 pm
From an old Biblical Horizons newsletter by James Jordan on rediscovering the concept of parishes and the local church: The Biblical conception of the Church is geographical, not ideological. In America today, we drive past twenty churches to get to the one we “agree” with. This situation canno...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 6, 2011, 11:28 pm
I’m going to perform a little experiment in the spirit of Dan Ariely and Stickk.com. If you’re new to what Stickk.com is all about, check out this post here. One of the things that Dan Ariely’s work focuses on is how people are predictably irrational. We undervalue things that are important f...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 6, 2011, 5:50 pm
Plagiarized from Peter Leithart’s blog on the topic of household baptisms: Blumenfeld again, quoting Wayne Meeks: “The household, especially in Romans times, develops into a vast and complex system of inner and outer connections of allegiances and obligation, a ‘network of relationships, both...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 6, 2011, 5:34 pm
Pictured above is Dietrich Bonhoeffer working it for the camera. Dietrich brought sexy back before Justin did. I’m reading Eric Metaxas’ Bonhoeffer and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. From time to time I may post little thoughts of mine and interesting excerpts from Metaxas’ work. Early on, M...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 3, 2011, 9:57 pm
A long time ago on here I mused about reading through Calvin’s Institutes and posting a sort of blow by blow account of my impressions. Then for a long time nothing happened. Until now. I have in my possession a copy of Volume I of Institutes on loan from the Brooks’ library, so now there’s...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Jan 2, 2011, 11:45 pm
It’s January 2nd. Yesterday, millions of people made New Years resolutions. Come March, most of those resolutions will be unattained. Come June, most of those resolutions will be forgotten. This is especially discouraging as many Christians made moral resolutions yesterday. Some will determine to...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 29, 2010, 10:12 am
For those who are interested in economics and politics, I discovered an online resource that might be worth perusing: a debate between Bastiat (a classical free-market supporter) and Proudhon (an anarcho-socialist), both of whom have been mentioned on this blog, at least in the comments, in the past...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 29, 2010, 12:15 am
Some tasty links served Brooks style:  This looks like a great resource for seeing the whole story of God’s plan of redemption George Grant explains the Christian origins of Boxing Day. Contrast this with the stores in Florida where I’m vacationing, 3/4′s of which were open on Christmas. Un...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 28, 2010, 3:24 pm
Means of grace? Sacraments. Prayer. Baptism. Scripture reading. Spiritual friendship. But prophecy? Save that for the Benny Hinn’s on TBN. Now here’s a problem. Read 1 Timothy 1:18-19. And read slowly. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previou...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 27, 2010, 9:26 pm
“The innermost contradiction of the free market is that it works to weaken the traditional social institutions on which it has depended in the past – the family is a key a example. The fragility and decline of the traditional family increased throughout the Thatcherite period. The proportion of ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 27, 2010, 12:14 pm
While Christmas ought to be a time of great joy, it can also be a season where a nascent gnosticism shows up in our pulpits and Sunday school classes. Consumerism bad. Spending evil. After all, how could Aunt Thelma buy me that Christmas sweater when Gela is starving in Mozambique? What a hell cat. ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 27, 2010, 10:16 am
Over the last several years of my life, when I think about the purpose of theology, I keep coming back to John Frame’s explanation: The way out of this bind is to recognize that Scripture is language, that it has its own rational order, that it gives a perfect, normative, rational description and...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 26, 2010, 12:59 am
As I prepare to go to church with my family today, I found this quote by Joseph Sobran to be especially poignant:   “It can be exalting to belong to a church that is five hundred years behind the times and sublimely indifferent to fashion; it is mortifying to belong to a church that is five min...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 26, 2010, 12:53 am
Merry Christmas! Now don’t forget that as we celebrate this season of joy we ought not to forget the displaced and the dispossessed; those who stand at the margins of society. And who is more dispossessed in our consumeristic Babel than those whom we have made idols to stand silent in our living r...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 23, 2010, 11:37 pm
Creation is the first theo-dramatic word: let it be. Alvin Plantinga appeals to the doctrine of creation when he speaks of the “design plan” of the human mind. God has created human beings so that their cognitive faculties will yield true beliefs, given optimal conditions and proper functioning....
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 21, 2010, 2:59 am
Joel Green, in his commentary on Luke 2, translates the text of the annunciation to the shepherds as follows: 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 15, 2010, 10:51 am
Some tasty links, just in time for the holidays: No Country For Karl Barth. Resisting the temptation to be kind. Reading religious texts in the humanities. In defense of partisan political labels. Hayek vs. Girard. Tough times make it all the way to Santa’s inbox.
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 13, 2010, 7:55 pm
A while ago I wondered aloud on this blog whether or not the New Calvinism was elevating the importance complementarian views of gender to a being central to what it means to be Reformed. While I feel fairly certain that it is not a prerequisite to be Reformed per se, yet again we have evidence that...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 9, 2010, 10:55 pm
Here are some links: A young (and possibly restless) Reformed Christian learns that Arminianism isn’t what Piper says it is. Bill Kinnon on disciples versus leaders. Agriculture and gender roles: a surprising correlation. Martyrdom or a book deal.
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 5, 2010, 11:51 pm
There is an article in the conservative magazine Commentary where a selection of right-wing Jews wondered why all Jews were not right-wing. As a whole it’s fairly dull bit of navel-gazing by people who presumed that they were self-evidently right about what their co-religionists should think about...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Dec 4, 2010, 3:35 pm
John Frame writes in his essay, A Theology of Opportunity, about “Prioritizing God’s Commands”: There is a bit of complication which enters at this point, however. We want to obey the commands of God. Sometimes, however, we must choose which command of God to obey at a particular time. That s...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 30, 2010, 11:19 pm
This is sort of an obvious oversight, but we’ve never actually had an email for the entire site. I suppose our rationalization would be that this is the time of social networks and web 2.o and so you can just reach us through Twitter or something. If you want to reach us the, ahem, old fashioned w...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 30, 2010, 7:10 pm
Dan has posted his second post regarding violence in the NT, this time focusing on Paul. Before getting into my (brief) comments about his argument, I need to clarify that I need to modify my stance from my previous post. While I still stand by my readings of the Gospels, in the abstract I can’t ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 28, 2010, 2:42 pm
Juan Cole on the recent debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens on the value of religion: “The best argument for religion might be that there is no secular reason for which to forgive either of these two for following George W. Bush around like puppies and assenting to his illegal war ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 27, 2010, 12:52 pm
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but Charles Bronson vs. hipsters? Can’t resist:
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 21, 2010, 12:21 am
Bear with me, this will be unbearably long. I have spent the last thirteen months unsuccessfully looking for steady work.  I also look back on ten years spent at a fairly famous Protestant megachurch with a famously complementarian pastor who once said that single guys are like milk cartons and ha...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 20, 2010, 7:24 pm
Links in lieu turkey (for Americans, Canadian Thanksgiving is sooo last month). First things first, we are flattered. The free market is not a suicide pact. Wars that aren’t happening don’t make the news, but probably still deserve reflection. On the hundredth anniversary of Tolstoy‘s deat...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 20, 2010, 12:36 pm
In light of the previous discussion that has just wound down, I wanted to present something coming at the issue of lawful resistance from a different angle. In this case, I want to suggest that Jesus did engage in a kind of resistance against evil (and evil powers) that many Christians today may hav...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 15, 2010, 9:55 pm
I was a bit taken aback today to see that new research is indicating that the Calvinist resurgence has made no statistical difference in the theological allegiances of American Protestant churches. When the researchers at Barna Group crunched the numbers they showed that the percentage of Reformed ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 13, 2010, 11:12 pm
John Frame writes in his The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God: A proof-text is simply a Scripture reference that is intended to show the basis for a particular theological assertion. The danger in proof-texting is well known: proof-texts are sometimes misused and their contextual meaning distorted ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 12, 2010, 12:23 pm
Dan Oudshorn has just put up his promised post on Jesus’ and the legitimacy of destroying private property (for liberating ends), and so I will continue with the response I began earlier. (Due to the awkwardness of blogging, I will refer to Dan in the third person in the main body of the post, tho...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 11, 2010, 10:49 pm
Another thing that was fascinating about that Fitch post that keeps giving us material over here at City of God was the mention again of the complementarian view of gender relations as being integral the New Calvinism. It’s striking to me as I grew up in the mainline Presbyterian Church in Canada ...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 11, 2010, 8:52 pm
In the post Dan referred to at David Fitch’s blog below, Fitch makes some teasing references toward a fuller, forthcoming argument regarding the problems with the Reformed tradition in a post-Christendom context. He hasn’t said much yet, and a bigger post is apparently coming, so I wont go very...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 10, 2010, 11:25 pm
Jeffery J. Niehaus writes in Basics of Biblical Hebrew: Grammar (by Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt): Whenever Yahweh appears in storm theophany in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word was interpreted figuratively, i.e., “made small, gentle.” Lust, however, suggests the sense, “crushing.�...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 9, 2010, 4:53 pm
David Fitch has a post up where he worries that the New Calvinism is becoming, in his words, a new fundamentalism. (Fitch defines fundamentalism here as insular, distrustful of culture and therefore given to an “us vs. them” mentality.) As evidence he presents a video of Kevin DeYoung and Al Moh...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 8, 2010, 2:00 pm
Over at Wedgewords, a long series on politics and Christianity has finally concluded. It is well worth reading, in that if you read the whole series of posts, you will get a very elaborate and clear contrast of several basic positions on the relation between Christianity and politics: Roman Catholic...
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Dan G. posted an article on City of God - Nov 8, 2010, 12:27 pm
Neil Reynolds of the Globe and Mail has a really interesting article on studies done by psychologist Jesse Bering who has studied the relationship between God and morality. It turns out that children who are unsupervised will cheat more than children who are told that they are being supervised by an...
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