Dr Paul Allen

The conquering power of evil is on the increase. This is characteristic of the last times. Innocent babies are now not even allowed to be born, so corrupted are the moral standards. Or if born, no one educates them, so desolate are studies. Or if trained, no one enforces the training, so impotent are the laws. In fact, the case for modesty . . . has in our time become an obsolete subject. Although these words could easily describe the moral erosion that we see today in the modern Western world, they are in fact from the pen of Tertullian, an early church father who lived in Carthage, in the Roman province of Africa, during the late second and early third centuries. Like us, Tertullian dwelled in times of difficulty, when there was a noticeable decline in society’s decency and virtue. Reading these comments helps us remember that sin has been a perennial problem with humans ever since Adam rebelled in the garden. Godlessness is characteristic of every historical period. Never was there ...

It didn’t take long, but we can now say that Aaron Renn and James Wood have been vindicated. Their recent analyses of our cultural moment and strategies for Christian cultural engagement have been proven right by recent events in Australia. I refer, here, to Andrew Thorburn and his rapid departure from a high-profile role at one of Australia’s most prestigious professional sporting clubs. This incident is a harbinger of the times and illustrates the wisdom of Wood’s and Renn’s claims about the church’s relationship to the culture.  Renn argues that we are in a “Negative World,” a cultural climate where Christianity is on-the-nose and increasingly marginal.  Conservative Christianity has a particularly bad brand in a world where traditional social mores are passé. Wood, by interacting with the example of Presbyterian minister Tim Keller, asserted that the age of “winsome” evangelical cultural engagement is over.  Whether or not Wood has properly framed Keller’s ministry st...

Watching David Koch skewer evangelical pastor Guy Mason on Australia’s morning show Sunrise was an excruciating experience.[1] Andrew Thorburn had been dismissed for his association with the City on a Hill church just a couple of days after being appointed chief executive of a professional Australian football club.  The reason given was that the church held to traditional Christian positions on abortion and homosexuality. These beliefs were now declared beyond the pale for someone prominent in Australian public life. Thorburn would not discuss his beliefs with the media, so Sunrise invited the pastor of Thorburn’s church, Guy Mason, to be interviewed instead. I could not be more sympathetic to Mason because I have been through many media interviews and you always, always come home thinking of things you should have said. It is easy for the rest of us to watch the recording and imagine from the tranquillity of our easy chairs better responses to the interviewer. I am more interested...

Stan Grant.  Like many, my best Christmas memories come from childhood. Endless hot summers, the river, food, and family. And faith. I come from a big Aboriginal family. There's no Christmas like a black Christmas. There was never much money and presents were few and modest, but they were treasured. One year I got a book of Greek myths that opened a world of wonder and ideas that have stayed with me a lifetime. We played cricket with a homemade bat carved out of an old fence post. Our ham came from a tin and chicken substituted for turkey. But we were blessed. Christmas was a time of prayer and hope. My uncles were pastors in the Aboriginal church. They looked to the black church leaders of the United States like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. These people had been forged in the furnace of the worst of Australian racism. Yet they refused to yield. Victimhood was not for them. The Aboriginal civil rights movement had grown out of the church. Men and women of profound faith who ...

How many people do you know that have made it to the hall of fame in music, art, literature, or sports because of their love? We elevate people to the status of heroes because of their gifts, their talents, and their power, but not because of their love. Yet, from God’s perspective, love is the chief of all virtues. But what is love? Love is said to make the world go round, and romantic love certainly makes the culture go round in terms of advertising and entertainment. We never seem to tire of stories that focus on romance. But we’re not referring to romantic love when we speak of the Christian virtue of love. We’re talking about a much deeper dimension of love, a virtue so paramount that it is to distinguish Christians from all other people. Moreover, love is so important to the Bible’s teachings that John tells us, “God is love” (1 John 4:7–8).  Whatever else we say about the Christian virtue of love, we must be clear that the love God commands is a love that imitates His own. T...

Have you noticed this vision of Christianity in the public square that seems muscular, confident, even brashly triumphalist? It is tired of Christianity’s never-ending losses in the culture war. It rightly criticizes the decadence, perversion, and irrational norms of secularism and understands that under the guise of “neutrality,” secularism has become the functional god of this age. The only way for cultural sanity to be restored is for Christians to truly grasp the lordship of Jesus Christ and unapologetically assert his authority over every part of life, even government. This vision may seem new if you’re younger than 40, but it is not. What we’re seeing is the rebirth of Christian Reconstruction or its more applied form, Theonomy. Christian Reconstruction or Theonomy? As T. David Gordon notes in a 1994 essay , Christian Reconstruction and Theonomy overlap considerably yet bear distinction. Christian Reconstruction refers to the broader theological and cultural program of uniting cu...

In every generation, every culture there is a dominant prevailing spirit. The Germans coined a word for it, Zeitgeist, a term that joins two common ideas together. Zeit is the German word for "time," Geist is the German word for "spirit." So Zeitgeist means "spirit of the time" or "spirit of the age." The contemporary Zeitgeist in which the Christian lives is one of secularism. The emphasis is on this world, on this time. Little attention is given to things that are above and beyond this world. Eternity is rarely considered, save for brief moments at a graveside. What counts is the here and now. To live for the moment, for the gusto of the present, is the spirit of this world. The secular spirit of this world has its own modern trends and emphases, but in its essence, it is not new. Every generation has its own form of secularism. We are earthbound creatures. Our focus is on this world. The same was true in Jesus' day. He repeat...

Will you keep your faith in university? Odds are you won’t, at least according to Barna Research. Barna estimates that roughly 70% of high school students who enter a university as professing Christians will leave with little to no faith. These students usually don’t return to their faith even after graduation, as Barna projects that 80% of those reared in the church will be “disengaged” by the time they are 29. Will you be one of the 80%? Will you abandon your faith when surrounded by peers who don’t know God? Most people assume their early faith will carry them through their lives. King Joash probably did. He began to reign at age 7 ( 2 Chronicles 24:1 ), and he “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest” ( 2 Chronicles 24:2 ), King Joash’s mentor and most trusted advisor. When Jehoiada was alive, Joash faithfully followed God’s laws and made sure others did as well. He even inspired others to give joyfully to God: “All the princes and all th...