A Review of The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis
As an enthusiastic, though occasional, listener of The Literary Life podcast, I was intrigued by Jason M. Baxter’s several interviews and subsequent work with the podcast’s sister-school providing literary education online, the House of Humane Letters. A Dante scholar and professor at Benedictine College, Baxter has recently written an accessible work on the literary influences that shaped the mind and writing of C. S. Lewis. I read...
Why Care About Theology Amid Cultural Crisis?
During the Great Depression, the Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen was troubled to find that some Christians were downplaying the importance of teaching the gospel in favor of focusing on people’s physical needs (food, housing, clothing, education, etc.). Certainly, the concern for people’s physical needs is noble, reminding us of the book of James. But Machen realized that, while Christians must care about and seek to meet...
John R. Gower and the Culture of Turn-of-the-Century Free Will Baptists (2/3)
In a previous post, I gave a brief biographical sketch of the Free Will Baptist farmer-preacher John R. Gower, who served in the Cumberland Association in Middle Tennessee during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this essay, we will explore how the cultural context of Gower’s life informs our understanding of the temperance movement in the Cumberland Association specifically and among Southern Free Will Baptists...
“Pa Played the Fiddle”: Making Music in the Age of the MP3
I have been reading aloud Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books to my boys over the past year. I read them myself growing up, but I have forgotten most of the stories; I am enjoying them at least as much as my boys are—possibly more. Although I realize the books are based on Laura’s actual childhood and not an exact memoir per se, I am still amazed at the type of life lived by this seemingly run-of-the-mill family of the late...
The Author of Hebrews and the Means of Motivation
The author of Hebrews has been referred to as “an expert in rhetoric and style,” a fitting description considering the many rhetorical devices employed throughout the book.[1] Although it is far beyond the scope of this essay to examine the author’s entire rhetorical approach thoroughly, it is helpful to explore some of the techniques he employed in the third warning passage (5:11–6:12). The focus on his rhetorical approach in the...
Examining the Language of “Predestination” in the New Testament
This article concludes a series I have written on the language of “foreknowledge,” “election,” and “predestination” in the New Testament from the perspective of a Reformed Arminian and Free Will Baptist. Foreknowledge refers to God’s knowing things before they happen, such as the crucifixion of Jesus and the election of believers; God has perfect foreknowledge because He is omniscient. Election refers to God’s choosing individual...
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