Ning Kam’s Arrangement of “Amazing Grace”

My friends Eric Campbell and Kim Davidson were married last Saturday. Both of them are very musical; Eric is the worship pastor at First Baptist Church of Durham, where I’m a member. The Christ-centered ceremony included some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard at a wedding. Our friend Erica Cooper, an accomplished violinist, played a gorgeous arrangement of “Amazing Grace”...

North Carolina and the Marriage Debate

On Monday and Tuesday, the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly voted to move forward with a statewide vote on a proposed marriage amendment to the state’s constitution. If approved, the amendment would bar legal recognition of any union besides traditional heterosexual marriage, including civil unions and domestic partnerships. North Carolina would then become the 31st state in the nation...

Four Myths about the Crusades

Every semester, I teach a couple of church history survey courses at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The first course, Church History: Patristic and Medieval, more or less covers the period from the end of the first century AD to the dawn of the sixteenth century. One of the topics I address is the crusades. Many students are very interested in the crusades. They hope that understanding the religious...

Two Recent Posts Elsewhere

Last week, I wrote two posts for other blogs. On Tuesday, my weekly contribution to the Credo Blog was titled “Understanding Orthodoxy.” The focus of the post was the best way to understand debates about orthodoxy and heresy among the Early Church Fathers. On Thursday, I wrote a commendation of David Dockery’s new book Christian Leadership Essentials for Between the Times. I hope you’ll...

Renewing the Liberal Arts

The summer 2011 issue of The City includes a round-table discussion on “Renewing the Liberal Arts.” The point of departure for the roundtable is Brad Green’s recent book The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Crossway, 2010). I reviewed Green’s excellent book back in January of this year. The participants in the roundtable include Louis Markos of Houston Baptist...