John Starke

John Starke

John Starke is an editor for The Gospel Coalition and lead pastor of All Souls Church in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. You can follow him on Twitter.
 

May

16

2012

John Starke|10:00 PM CT

What Hath Cambridge to Do with Sunday Morning?
What Hath Cambridge to Do with Sunday Morning? avatar


Does the academy pose a threat to the faith? Peter Williams (right), warden at Tyndale House, Cambridge, and Simon Gathercole (center), senior lecturer in New Testament Studies at Cambridge University, have reached the highest levels of scholarship and maintained evangelical faith. But how?

Justin Taylor sat down last month with these two accomplished scholars in Louisville and discussed the challenges of maintaining robust orthodoxy in academia and the importance of the local church. He kicked off the conversation by asking Williams to offer a short explanation for why we should take note of Gathercole's research on the Gospel of Thomas.

[audio:http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/files/2012/05/Taylor_Williams.mp3]

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May

08

2012

John Starke|4:50 PM CT

Biblical Counseling in the Local Church
Biblical Counseling in the Local Church avatar

Deepak Reju, pastor of biblical of counseling at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, faces a wide swath counseling of challenges in a church with about a thousand attending every Sunday. Pornography is the most common struggle among congregants. The most sobering and urgent cases, he says, involve counseling the suicidal.

Reju sat down in Louisville with TGC's Mark Mellinger and talked about a number of issues concerning pastors and counseling in the local church. Mellinger asks Reju to advise preaching pastors at smaller churches how they can grow in their counseling and disciple-making. The most pointed discussion comes when Mellinger asks Reju, "What works for the suicidal? What can you do?" Among a number of other insightful observations, Reju advocates "lending faith" to those who can't look up to see the glories of God and his gospel. I'll let Reju explain it...

 
 
 
 

May

02

2012

John Starke|10:00 PM CT

Reader's Guide to TGC's National Women's Conference
Reader's Guide to TGC's National Women's Conference avatar

Next month, thousands of women will be gathering together in Orlando to learn more of how the character of God is revealed in Scripture. Many of these women can point to particular books that have played an important role in developing their understanding of God's Word. These books opened up an aspect of Scripture that once seemed so vague, or completely changed how to read the Bible.

So I'm pleased to tell you about two things book lovers will enjoy about The Gospel Coalition's national women's conference, June 22 to 24. First, TGC editorial director Collin Hansen will host a discussion with Gloria Furman and Lydia Brownback on "Women Writing: Perspectives on the World of Publishing---Online and Off." This new Focus Gathering will be held Friday, June 22, at 9 p.m. So if you're interested in blogging or even writing books, we hope you'll join us.

Second, just like every other...

 
 
 
 

May

02

2012

John Starke|12:01 AM CT

The Most Boring Important Thinker You Should Read
The Most Boring Important Thinker You Should Read avatar

On this day, in 1895, on a dairy farm in the middle of the Netherlands, the world changed. The effects, however, would not become apparent for another 50 to 60 years. Cornelius Van Til, future philosopher and apologist at Westminster Theological Seminary, was born.

I offer this dramatic introduction only half-seriously, which means I'm only half-joking.

By reading some of Van Til's followers, you would think he authored the first thoroughly biblical understanding of the knowledge of God. That might be saying too much, but it is indeed difficult to find someone with more penetrating insight about the failures of natural man's understanding of God, himself, and the world. His thinking in apologetics and epistemology would soon come to be known as presuppositionalism---a term Van Til disliked and others have tried to remedy.

Van Til transformed the discussions around epistemology and apologetics unlike anyone else in modern Christian history---being the main influence behind...

 
 
 
 

Apr

03

2012

John Starke|6:59 PM CT

The Cross and Christian Blogging
The Cross and Christian Blogging avatar

We love the shrewdness and wit of Jesus. There's a fist somewhere inside that pumps whenever we read the parts of the Gospels where the religious leaders are left unable "to answer him a word," or when no one "dared to ask him any more questions."

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image courtesy xkcd.com"][/caption]

And that's why some of us blog. We love the feel of silencing our foes. Paul's use of "emasculating" irony in Galatians 5 gives us every justification for sarcasm. Oh, we bloggers love sarcasm; this literary tool allows us to assume our opponents' position, only to take it all the way to its foolish end without ever having to explicitly call them a fool.

Of course, the best of Christian public intellectuals carried this same shrewd sarcasm. C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton are excellent examples, and we...

 
 
 
 

Mar

29

2012

John Starke|2:46 PM CT

The Gospel Explains and Undermines Racism
The Gospel Explains and Undermines Racism avatar

The gospel explains and undermines racism, John Piper said on Wednesday at New York City's Society for Ethical Culture. The gospel explains racism, which is fruit of rebellion against God. If we rebel against our Maker, then we'll turn against each other. Yet the gospel also undermines racism, he said, by the reconciling work of the cross, making all believers sons and daughters. Racism is not simply a social issue; because of the cross and our new standing with Christ, it is a blood issue.

Piper's most recent book, Bloodlines, was the occasion for the event, which also included presentations from Tim Keller and Anthony Bradley, editor of the new book Keep Your Head Up and associate professor of theology and ethics at the King's College.

Keller's presentation explained why white Americans have such a difficult time understanding "corporate guilt."...

 
 
 
 

Mar

26

2012

John Starke|9:59 PM CT

On the Origin of Everything . . . Except Everything
On the Origin of Everything . . . Except Everything avatar


Lawrence Krauss wants you to know that his new book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, answers the mystery of the universe---or at least the mystery of where it came from. He uses the laws of quantum mechanics to give a thoroughly secular explanation to why anything exists. Richard Dawkins believes this book delivers a death blow to Christianity and any other religious explanation of the universe: "Even the last remaining trump card the theologian, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?,' shrivels up before your eyes as you read these pages. . . . The title means exactly what it says. And what it says is devastating."

In an NPR interview, Krauss explains a quick application of his theory of how something can come from nothing according to the...

 
 
 
 

Mar

21

2012

John Starke|12:01 AM CT

Thomas Cranmer's Complicated Death
Thomas Cranmer's Complicated Death avatar

We often overlook the failures of our heroes. Martin Luther's antisemitic comments do not inspire us to defend the gospel, so we tell the story of his heroic stand at the Diet of Worms. John Wesley's failure to be a loving husband doesn't motivate us to pray for revival, so we tell of the stirring crowds who rushed to know how they could be saved after hearing of the new birth in Christ. We drool over the multi-volume sets of so-and-so's "works," dumbfounded by such productivity, never considering what these writers might have neglected at home or in their church in order to be so productive in print.

But Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury (b. July 2, 1489; d. March 21, 1556), will never enjoy the luxury of having his failures overlooked. His greatest public...

 
 
 
 

Feb

29

2012

John Starke|8:01 PM CT

If the Apostle Paul Believed in the Historical Adam, Must We?
If the Apostle Paul Believed in the Historical Adam, Must We? avatar

Recently Kevin DeYoung offered 10 reasons to believe in the historical Adam, in which he cited the apostle Paul's belief in the historical Adam. Even more poignantly, Tim Keller has previously argued, "If you don't believe what he believes about Adam, you are denying the core of Paul's teaching."

Peter Enns, author of The Evolution of Adam, is not convinced. "This is an unfortunate quandary, for to take this admonition seriously, one has really little choice but to turn a blind eye to the scientific investigations of human origins."

Enns continues:

Paul's view on Adam is perhaps the central issue in this debate among evangelicals. But the entire question turns on whether Paul's comments on Adam are prepared to settle what can and cannot be concluded about human origin on the basis of scientific investigation.


Enns agrees with DeYoung that Paul did indeed believe in the historical Adam. But...

 
 
 
 

Feb

27

2012

John Starke|12:01 AM CT

Constantine's Birth: Cause for Celebration?
Constantine's Birth: Cause for Celebration? avatar


Celebrating Constantine's birthday on February 27 might seem, at least for some, like celebrating the Crusades. It's rarely a good thing when society adds an "-ism" to the end of your name. For Christians like John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, and their followers, the church "fell" under Constantine and has yet to recover. According to them, the Christian political ethic from Constantine onwards has been "success," not a theology of the cross, which Luther rediscovered and the Anabaptists fulfilled.

Nevertheless, we remember that on this day in AD 272, Constantine the Great was born.

By This Sign


Stories about the conversion of Constantine conflict, but the popular legend told by Eusebius of Caesarea goes like this:
About noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of
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