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Ten Years Later
A full decade has passed since America suffered the tragedy of 9/11. Ten years ago, I repeatedly heard the question raised: “Where was God in all of this? Where was God on 9/11 when the planes crashed into …Read More
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What If or If God?
I love the Lord of the Rings. I remember sitting in a hotel room in Seattle, Washington, in December of 2003, reading the last book of the trilogy, The Return of the King. I had just spent the previous few …Read More
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A Pastor’s Reflection
What do you do when the world falls apart? When the planes struck, I was in my office overlooking Columbia University on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, eight miles north of Ground Zero. I listened helplessly to news reports …Read More
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The Days of the Dead
September 11, 2001, was, in many respects, a rather ordinary day. I began the day working at my desk, writing. But my plans quickly changed. Many of us spent hours staring not at our computer screens but at our television …Read More
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Ten Years Later
The world has changed. We are not the same people we were on September 10, 2001. The events of September 11, 2001, and the events that followed in ensuing years have not only changed America but nations and peoples throughout …Read More
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Human Trafficking in God’s World
Genesis 3 records the terrible day when humanity fell into sin and shalom was violated. This was a moment of cosmic treason, when Adam and Eve violated their relationship with God by rebelling against His command and fell into the …Read More
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Not Protesting Evil
Dear Eligos, We tempters have a job that is both easy and difficult. Thanks to our fearless leader’s victory in the garden some time ago, human beings are ridiculously, even comically, susceptible to sinning. And yet, sin itself is …Read More
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Simul Iustus et Peccator
Why do we do the things we do? Scholars struggle to understand human nature and, in particular, what theologians call sin. Where does it come from and why do we do it? In 2002, James Waller produced a careful work …Read More
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Paradise Lost
In the second chapter of Hebrews, the author notes that God did not appoint angels, but human beings, to rule the world to come (v. 5), and he quotes Psalm 8 to prove it: “You made him for a little …Read More
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The Mystery of Iniquity
It has been called the Achilles’ heel of the Christian faith. Of course, I’m referring to the classical problem of the existence of evil. Philosophers such as John Stuart Mill have argued that the existence of evil demonstrates that …Read More
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An Epic in the Making
The theme of this month’s Tabletalk is Paradise Lost, which is the title of what most critics would agree is the greatest poem in the English language. John Milton was an English puritan revolutionary who helped overthrow King Charles …Read More
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The True Face of Evil
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.” So writes the Nobel …Read More
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He Who Has Ears
Lord Acton was absolutely right that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. He may have been more right, however, if he had adapted a bit of biblical wisdom in articulating the dangers of power. What if he …Read More
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The Decree of God
Joseph has just revealed his true identity to his astonished brothers. It had been a tearful moment (Gen. 46:2, 14; cf. 42:24; 43:30). He is about to engage in a discourse on predestination and the divine decree …Read More
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Bringing Christ Into the Problem
Charles Darwin finally gave up his belief in God not because he discovered evidence for evolution by natural selection (a theory he developed some years earlier) but because of his anguish at the death of his ten-year-old daughter. When he …Read More