Parchment & Pen Blog

There are so many ways to look at this. There are so many ways to spin it. There are so many things people say that turn my hair grey. Many conservatives are saying this is the “end of America.” It stresses me out. Stressors include the fact that nations rise and nations fall. In tragedy and loss [...]

I have kept an eye on what people are saying in my circles about Obama’s re-election. Things don’t look too good there. Fear, anger, frustration, and hopelessness are filling the thoughts of those of us who are supposed to have the most hope. There are few times when the sin of idolatry is revealed more [...]

This past week I came across a statement by Marvin Olasky concerning the national election on Tuesday: “Sinful humans with all our quirks will decide who controls the White House and Congress. But under a sovereign God, the election is no crapshoot.” You may not find comfort in the truth of that statement, but I [...]

In a First Things editorial entitled “What Should We Do About the Poor?”[1], the editors discuss alternatives to addressing poverty.  Though this essay is about twenty years old, it still offers sage advice for assisting the genuinely “disadvantaged poor.” The editors mention the traditional “conservative” approach—namely, to stop giving out money in order that the [...]

Is America in a state of moral decline? Are we teetering on the edge of judgement from the angry hands of God? Maybe, but I am not as convinced as some are. What I do know is that nostalgia is a common condition among us politically conservative Christians. “If we could only get back to the way things used [...]

There is an amusing scene in the 1990 film Back to the Future III in which time-traveler Marty McFly, exploring his home town in the year 2015, encounters a holographic projection of a shark as part of the marquee at a theater showing Jaws 19. At first taken by surprise, Marty recovers and comments, “The [...]

 I received in the mail last night a new book by Dr. Wayne Grudem, research professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary. Politics – According to the Bible is Grudem’s latest offering, published by Zondervan. It’s a thick book—weighing in at more than 600 pages. What I find fascinating in this book is that [...]