THE BENEFIT OF PERSECUTION

"Wouldn’t our detractors just love it if we gave up our pursuit of what’s right? Yet far from reneging on our allegiance to live as citizens of his subversive Kingdom, we can actually be “glad” about the pressure they put on us. In truth, our persecutors’ unintended consequence crowds us to Christ! And instead of …

Common Good Righteousness

Our nation’s founders claimed a “self-evident” truth that all humans are equal and that our Creator has endowed us with “certain unalienable Rights.” These “Rights” were so important to the writers of the Declaration that they capitalized the word. Pursuing a just distribution of those rights makes one a good American as well as a …

Your Eye for Mine

People treat their enemies in one of three ways: demonically, legalistically, or christianly. Returning evil for good is demonic. Giving back good for good and evil for evil (eye for an eye) is legalistic. Many Christians practice this second way without giving it a second thought. Someone puts out your eye and you put out …

“Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.”

Christians of good conscience have always lent their hand to those in the most need. You’re more likely to find hospitals and orphanages named after saints (St. Luke’s, St. Jude’s) than ones after even the most famous atheists or agnostics. Can you imagine a Christopher Hitchens Hospital or Bertrand Russell Home for Children? Every week …