Culture
How Philip Rieff’s Three Worlds Help Us Understand Cultural Change
With the title of my book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution, I tip my hat to the psychological sociologist, Philip Rieff, and his book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic. Rieff has been particularly influential on two points. First, he’s clear that the…
Read More3 Thinkers Who Can Help Us Understand Today’s Cultural Challenges
I’m really a Reformation scholar. I’m a 16th and 17th-century guy, but in my late forties, I’d pretty much said everything I wanted to say on those topics and was looking for another historical challenge. Around that same time, I was approached by Rod Dreher of The American Conservative and Justin Taylor of Crossway, and…
Read MoreA Conversation with Dr. J. Michael Thigpen about Human Flourishing and the Creation Mandate
How are we to flourish in the presence of sin? And what role, if any, does the creation mandate—the commands which flow from our creation in God’s image—play in our flourishing in the presence of sin? What does that mandate have to do with justice and the gospel? These are questions that Phoenix Seminary Provost…
Read MoreHow the Information Age Distracts Us and How Solitude Can Help
It’s funny to me when high school students think they’re free thinkers because they act like their friends and not like their parents. Adults who think of themselves as free thinkers are not any less silly. There are no free thinkers; there are simply persons animated by either the Spirit of God or the spirit…
Read MoreYou Don’t Know Who is Listening on Easter
You climb into the pulpit, weary after a year of ministering under duress: COVID, racial tension, economic uncertainty, natural disasters, and a bitterly divisive election. People are divided and nervous and afraid and mad. How do you preach in a world so confused, so torn? Is anyone even listening to preachers preaching anymore? But you…
Read MoreUpdate on Coronavirus
As promised, the executive leadership has made a decision regarding our direction for the rest of the Spring semester. See below for our communication to our students. I am thankful that Phoenix Seminary can continue its mission during this season, even if it is not our preferred mode. Please continue to pray for the Seminary,…
Read MoreSt. Patrick and the Missionary Mandate
By now your television screens, inboxes, and minds are flooded with news of coronavirus. It’s a harrowing hour to be sure. Instead of fretting at every bit of news that comes out, we can use this time to remember God’s faithfulness. God has a missionary heart and has been seeking and saving the lost from…
Read MoreChristians and Coronavirus
How should Christians respond to the coronavirus? From what I see and hear, there is growing panic, even in the church. But fear is not the Christian way. The Apostle Paul reminds us that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7). This reminds me…
Read MoreThe Council of Nicaea and Biblical Canon
Ideas have consequences. The idea that the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), under the authority of Roman Emperor Constantine, established the Christian biblical canon attempted to show how the Bible originated from conspiracy and power play on the part of a relative few, elite bishops. That this idea persists today can be shown not only…
Read MoreGod & Evolution Videos
In January, Phoenix Seminary was pleased to host a special two-day event on “God & Evolution: A Critique of Theistic Evolution.” The response was so overwhelming that the location had to be moved to accommodate attendees. The speakers for the evening included J. P. Moreland, Stephen Meyere, and the seminary’s own Wayne Grudem. Each was a…
Read More