Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

politics

Three Books on Politics

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I grew up following politics more than the average kid because my Dad loved following politics. For example, he’s read just about every issue of National Review since the 1970s. He’s also one of the most brilliant people I know.

So it was a pleasure to coauthor this article with him for TGC: “Three Books on Politics: A Review Article” (14-page PDF). It summarizes and evaluates three recent evangelical books on politics:

  1. Wayne Grudem. Politics—According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010. 619 pp.
  2. Carl R. Trueman. Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010. xxvii + 110 pp.
  3. Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner. City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era. Edited by Timothy Keller and Collin Hansen. Cultural Renewal. Chicago: Moody, 2010. 140 pp.

The format of our review is similar to these review articles:

We review each book separately—tracing the argument and suggesting strengths and weaknesses—and conclude by briefly comparing the three books.

Two Books on Politics by Theologians Coming out Next Month

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One short (144 pages)

Carl R. Trueman. Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010.

(Sample pages, video interview, and endorsements here.)

One long (624 pages)

Wayne Grudem. Politics according to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.

Bullmore on Confidence in Human Government

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Yesterday morning, Mike Bullmore prefaced his sermon with an outstanding 135-second pastoral exhortation in light of the upcoming election on November 4.

An excerpt:

Let there be no loss of security, whoever is in office. . . . There’s no cause no matter what happens—ever—for those who belong to God to worry or complain or whine.

Listen to the whole thing (2:15 min.).

4 Reflections on Suetonius’s “The Twelve Caesars”

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Over the last  couple of days, I read The Twelve Caeasars (cf. Wikipedia) by Suetonius. I marked up my print copy while listening to a 13-hour audio book. It is a gossipy chronicle with a fascinating perspective on the lives of the first twelve Roman Caesars that significantly intersects with Second Temple Judaism and the birth and spread of Christianity: [Read more…] about 4 Reflections on Suetonius’s “The Twelve Caesars”

Obama is “the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.”

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Robert George’s “Obama’s Abortion Extremism” is moving.

For a summary of Robert George’s impressive background as well as a summary of the article, see Justin Taylor’s “Robert P. George: ‘Voting for the Most Extreme Pro-Abortion Political Candidate in American History Is Not the Way to Save Unborn Babies.’”

Update (10/16/08): Robert George and Yuval Levin’s “Obama and Infanticide” argues, “Obama’s latest excuse for opposing the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act is that the law was ‘unnecessary’ because babies surviving abortions were already protected. It won’t fly.”

Deborah Upstaged Barak

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Douglas Wilson recently shared his initial observations on Sarah Palin. He concludes,

An issue that will be discussed among some conservative Christians is the propriety of electing a woman. Evangelical Christians are overwhelmingly hostile to feminism, and so what is with that? I have argued before from Isaiah 3:12—“children are their oppressors, and women rule over them”—that feminism is one of the things Scripture uses as an indicator of God’s judgment on a culture. I still believe that, and also believe that we are in fact under this particular judgment in our culture. But as a biblical absolutist, and not a simple traditionalist, I also want to make room for the occasional Deborah. Life is funny, and you should remember that in the Bible Deborah was the dame who upstaged a fellow named Barak. Kinda spooky when you think about it.

Pretty witty. See Judges 4–5. Deborah rose to the occasion when Barak lacked courage (e.g., 4:8, 14).

(The analogy Deborah : Barak :: Sarah Palin : Barack Obama breaks down, of course, not least since Deborah and Barak were on the “same team.”)