Posts by Don Johnson
Is Tribalism Bad?
Is Tribalism Bad? | National Review (The article might be behind a paywall, so this post includes a bit longer excerpts than usual. Abigail Anthony makes good points here. She is mostly thinking in the political arena, but her points apply to religious “tribalism” as well.) “Tribalism” is an increasingly popular word. In a heated panel…
Read MoreChristianity Today apologizes
Recently, CT published a piece surveying the theories of an evangelical scholar who downplays the idea that the Romans used nails for the crucifixion. After a lot of criticism, the author of the article published an apology: Nailing Down the Truth of Christ’s Crucifixion – Christianity Today My curiosity took me to the descriptions of…
Read MoreWhat Happened in Canada
Our election up here is over and the guys I voted for lost (as usual… I am used to backing those who rarely win!). Interestingly to me, a lot of Americans are talking about this one — you all usually don’t notice our politics. Of course, the reason it is getting attention in the USA…
Read MoreWhat A Fellowship
The Greek term we translate “fellowship” in English has a connotation different from what English speakers think of when we mention the term. We think of comradeship or companionship, and the pleasure those relations evoke. The Oxford English Dictionary gives us this idea here: Companionship, company, friendly association (frequently of or with a specified person or persons); an instance…
Read MoreTrinity Evangelical Divinity School Moving to Canada – Christianity Today
A prominent but troubled evangelical seminary has agreed to be acquired by a Canadian university and move to British Columbia, the school’s leaders announced Tuesday. The move comes after years of financial struggle and declining attendance at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School—known as TEDS—an Evangelical Free Church school whose alums have played an outsized role in…
Read MoreDid You Hear the One about the Woman Pope?
“Hey, did you hear the one about the woman pope?” “Yeah, she reigned for two years as a man in the middle ages but was exposed going into labor during a papal procession.” What do you think of that? Had you heard about it before? The story is real, but we aren’t sure whether “Pope…
Read MoreKids From Strong Families Less Likely to Fall in Love with Robots – Breakpoint
The complications of creating artificially intelligent robots for service, companionship, or sex has been the plot of movies and TV shows for decades, from Terminator to Bicentennial Man to A.I. to Westworld. While some of these entertainment properties portrayed the human-AI relationships as potentially good, others warned of the inevitable, unforeseen dangers. All assumed that…
Read MoreChildren of a Common Mother
This afternoon I enjoyed a “first” in my relationship with the United States of America. As most of our readers know, I am a Canadian by birth, and except for when I went to the USA to get an education (and a wife), I’ve spent my entire life living in Canada. Through all this time…
Read MoreRift Grows In SBC Over Support For Leftist Immigration Policy
Over the past decade, a growing divide has emerged within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), as denominational leaders have increasingly framed left-leaning border policies as a Christian imperative. Source: Rift Grows In SBC Over Support For Leftist Immigration Policy Photo by Barbara Zandoval on Unsplash
Read MoreTwo Essential Propositions about God
Deuteronomy 4 gives us two strong statements about the nature of God. I am calling them “propositions.” A proposition is “Something which is asserted or avowed; a sentence or form of words in which this is done; a statement, an assertion.”1 Years ago, I read John Broadus on preaching and discovered the idea of a…
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