As acknowledged by his friends and his foes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of the most significant Presidents in the nation’s history.  While debates over his policies, actions, and legacy will surely continue, his leadership gifts continue to impress historians across ideological boundaries.

A particular emphasis upon the nature and structure of the church has been central to the Baptist vision.  In other words, ecclesiology is in many ways the chief contribution and distinctive of the Baptists.  Sadly, you would not learn that by observing many Baptist congregations.  Baptist ecclesiology has been eclipsed by pragmatism and undermined by neglect.

The makers of the modern mind are many, but few can match the influence of Sigmund Freud. Freud’s basic ideas have now become part and parcel of the contemporary mindset. His terms are now part of our vocabulary and his idea of the unconscious has formed much of the structure for the therapeutic culture all around us.

No one should underestimate the extent to which fundamental worldviews produce very different understandings of reality.  These different understandings of reality produce radically different perspectives on the real-life issues with which we are confronted.

I was very pleased to join host Bill Goodman for a conversation on “One to One,” Kentucky Educational Television’s interview program. Bill Goodman adds a great deal to the intellectual conversation in Kentucky, and I enjoyed the conversation. We discussed a range of issues, but also my new book, Culture Shift. KET expands its public service by making these videos available online after broadcast. The program was originally broadcast on January 27, 2008 and can be viewed here.

The emergence of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terror organizations is a story that demands far greater attention than most Americans have yet invested. Given the importance of this story — not only for understanding 9/11, but for understanding the present — this is a matter that demands a substantial education on the part of the American public.

The Book of Job remains an enigma for many Christians. Beyond this, it has been misused as a text for protest atheism and as a pretext for much theological mischief. Robert S. Fyall offers a virtually unprecedented approach to Job in Now My Eyes Have Seen You: Images of Creation and Evil in the Book of Job [Apollos/InterVarsity Press].

The history of African-American theology raises one key question — What happened? Thabiti M. Anyabwile, now senior pastor of the First Baptist Church, Grand Cayman Islands, answers this question in The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity [InterVarsity Press]. Anyabwile traces a road from biblical orthodoxy to theological liberalism in the mainstream of African-American theology.

Spiritual discernment is an art, a science, and the responsibility of every disciple of Jesus Christ. At the same time, we live in a culture that rejects discernment and we see churches that have failed in the task of preparing Christian believers to practice spiritual discernment. A Christian without discernment is unable to see the difference between the truth and the lie, the artificial and the real, the orthodox and the heretical, even right and wrong.