A few weeks ago I read Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It’s reputation is deserved. His understanding of justice, and ability to articulate it, is absolutely incredible. Here are a few of its key portions, summarized with some headings. And then at the end I have a few reflections on whether those who […]

Tiim Keller speaking on his book, Generous Justice.  In my view, this is one of the most important books anyone can read this year. This message gives a good summary of the content in 30 minutes. I love the way he starts, pointing out how “many who are concerned about justice are not concerned about justification […]

In his excellent book Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, Tim Keller quotes Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke’s very shocking, but absolutely correct, definition of justice: The righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community; the wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves. Keller expands: Most people think of […]

I recently took notes over Carl F.H. Henry’s The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Written in 1947 (when “fundamentalism” and “evangelicalism” were equivalent terms), Henry’s call was for a theologically informed and socially engaged evangelicalism. Henry was concerned that, through its separatist mentality and tendency to separate social action from the concern of the Christian, modern […]

I watched the beginning of John Piper’s Bloodlines documentary the other day, and something Piper said really stands out to me. Segregation was referred to as “separate but equal” — but, as Piper points out, it was really just separate. There was nothing equal about it. It was discrimination, pure and simple. Claiming that you […]