I always tell students that the first question to ask about any historical action is this: who makes money out of the deal?

Heresy is usually quite sophisticated, actually has a meaning, and is to be taken very seriously. It is therefore to be carefully distinguished from turgid, pretentious, badly-written Bullsgeshichte, to use the technical German theological term.

I always tell students that the first question to ask about any historical action is this: who makes money out of the deal?

The answer to the problem of evil does not lie in trying to establish its point of origin, for that is simply not revealed to us. Rather, in the moment of the cross, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good.... If God can take the greatest of evils and turn them for the greatest of goods, then how much more can he take the lesser evils which litter human history, from individual tragedies to international disasters, and turn them to his good purpose as well.

We need a critical theory that seeks to change the world by challenging the world - including the world of evangelicals - in its market-driven, all, consuming consumerist idolatries.

Cultural relevance can be a cruel mistress.

Drinking beer with friends is perhaps the most underestimated of all Reformation insights and essential to ongoing reform; and wasting time with a choice friend or two on a regular basis might be the best investment of time you ever make.