Is God a Moral Monster? (Paul Copan)
Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011). 252 pp. $14.99 paperback. review by Kevin Williford Among the challenges facing the church today is the attack on the Christian faith posed by what is commonly called the “New Atheists.” What distinguishes the New Atheists from those in previous generations is their militancy and efforts to popularize atheism. The primary mode of...
Desire: A Missing Link In Our Theology
What happens when right beliefs don’t lead to right behavior? Using New Testament language, we might simply call this “hypocrisy.” In my previous essay, I addressed the problems with separating theology (doctrine) from ethics (practice). Because these two belong together biblically, effectively divorcing them renders Christianity incoherent. They flow in and out of one another. Once we accept this, it is only reasonable to ask, “Why...
When Theology Gets Practical
One of the bestselling books of the 1990s was Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. In it, author John Gray attempted to help couples better understand their differences so that their relationships might improve. But by no means was this project original to Dr. Gray. We often gain understanding by comparison and contrast: men and women, darkness and light, the objective and the subjective, and countless other relationships. There...
A Defense of Ethical Evangelism
How Religion Spoils Everything is the subtitle of Christopher Hitchens’s New York Times best-seller God is Not Great. And there are many who share Hitchens’s feelings about religion. Increasingly, it seems, many see religion as a dangerous thing. Still, the vast majority of people (especially Americans) are religious. Despite the prevalence of religious peoples, increasing pressure mounts nevertheless to privatize faith. For religions...
Diversity and the Sliding Ethical Scale
Essay by Tim Campbell Diversity has always existed in the Church. There have always been issues about which people have disagreed. However, the conventional use, understanding, and application of varied opinions has undergone a radical alteration in relation to ethical relevance. Historically, persons recognized a standard of evaluation. Yet in the present age, such a standard has been thrown to the wind. A Framework for Ethical...
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