Dr Paul Allen

Stephen Wellum Any sane person knows that there is something wrong with us. No one can honestly examine history, let alone their own lives, without being struck by the extent to which we as a human race have “missed the mark” and not lived up to our ideals. Reinhold Niebuhr keenly observed that “the doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.”[1]  The “human condition” has been the subject of countless books, films, and plays as people have wrestled with the reality of good and evil. One of my favourites is The Lord of the Rings, in which Tolkien explores the insidious power of the ring and the evil that lurks in every heart. 1. Reinhold Niebuhr, Man’s Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man’s Personal and Social Existence (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012), 24. However, although everyone admits that something is wrong with us, we do not explain the “huma...

Andrew T Walker Given the state of our culture, what I’m about to say may sound incredibly counterintuitive—maybe even bordering on the absurd. Nonetheless, I am left with the conviction that at this present cultural moment, there has never been a better time to be a social conservative. Given the advanced state of moral debauchery in mainstream American institutions, how could I possibly say something like that? I can say that because truth finds a way to reassert itself when we learn what is false. And what is most patently false about the time we live is the belief that we can continue to sustain ourselves walking the same hollowed-out pathway that we’re currently continuing down. It’s impossible. When we look at the declining marriage rates, the rise of what we call the “loneliness epidemic,” the transgender madness transgressing the very limitations of reason and nature, the increase in suicidal ideation, and preborn human beings discarded as “medical waste,” we see the reality....

"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." (Rom. 3:10-12) Is it true that the natural man cannot do any good at all? Is this not something of an overstatement? The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, reflects this point of view when it asserts: From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. Are there not occasions when unbelievers show acts of kindness and self-sacrifice? Imagine, for a moment, writing a letter to one of the national newspapers in which you say, "Non-Christians have never done anything good." It would not be difficult to imagine the opprobrium that would result from such a statement. What, then, do Paul and the Westminster Confession mean when they collectively assert such a position? Ev...