John Piper has announced that he will be taking an 8-month leave of absence from his duties at Bethlehem Baptist Church. As I was leaving church today, I received an e-mail from DesiringGod.org with a letter from Piper explaining why. He writes: “I asked the elders to consider this leave because of a growing sense that my soul, my marriage, my family, and my ministry-pattern need a reality check from the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, I love my Lord, my wife, my five children and their families first and foremost; and I love my work of preaching and writing and leading Bethlehem. I hope the Lord gives me…
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Mohler, Hamilton, Ware on NPR News
NPR News recently reported on Southern Seminary’s forum on Brian McLaren’s new book A New Kind of Christianity. The report includes remarks from Jim Hamilton, Bruce Ware, and Albert Mohler. You can listen to the report below or read the article here. [audio:http://public.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2010/03/20100326_me_07.mp3?dl=1] Brian McLaren also speaks in this interview. His remarks confirm what was already clear in his book. McLaren rejects penal substitutionary atonement and says that he no longer believes in a “God who needs blood in order to be appeased.” McLaren also indicates that Jesus is not the only way to be saved. The report is slanted from the outset. She calls Hamilton and Ware “angry” and…
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Don’t Waste Your Cancer
Thank you, brother Zac. (HT: @John Piper)
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Review of “In the Land of Believers”
[PDF version of the following review.] Gina Welch’s In the Land of Believers: An Outsider’s Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church is the narrative of the author’s two-year sojourn in the late Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) in Lynchburg, Virginia. As a life-long liberal atheist, Welch had always regarded evangelicals with an elitist contempt. Uncomfortable with her disdain, she goes undercover and joins the church in order to find out what evangelicals are really like. At the outset of her project, Welch observes miles of ideological distance between her and the subjects of her study. With respect to Jerry Falwell, she writes, “I considered him…
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Josh Harris in SBTS Chapel
Josh Harris is in town to speak at Boyce College’s “No Idols” conference. The conferences starts tomorrow, but today he preached in our chapel. It was a penetrating exposition of Proverbs 3:5-6. Watch it above, or listen below. “Total Trust” – Proverbs 3:5-6 [audio:http://www.sbts.edu/media/audio/spring2010/20100318harris.mp3]
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Health Reform Bill Is Pro-Abortion
It’s time for you to act. The debate over healthcare reform has reached a fevered pitch as the House of Representatives moves toward an up or down vote on the measure this week. Actually, that last sentence is a bit too simplified. The series of votes that is about to begin this week with the House would take a professional parliamentarian to explain, but the bottom line is this. Healthcare Reform is on the cusp of becoming the law of the land. At this point, many citizens are tempted to tune-out this debate. Americans are tired of the fighting in Congress, they have issue-fatigue, and they are just ready for…
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Mohler and SBTS Profs Dissect McLaren
Albert Mohler hosted a discussion today of Brian McLaren’s new book A New Kind of Christianity. Panel members include Bruce Ware, Jim Hamilton, Greg Wills, and Stephen Wellum. It is no surprise that this panel is very critical of the book. All agree that the book is an open renunciation of the historic Christian faith. Mohler calls the book a “brazen confrontation” of the Christian metanarrative. Ware says that the title should have been “An Old Kind of Apostasy.” He also says that before this book he had thought of McLaren as a wolf in sheep’s clothing but that now he sees that this wolf has taken off his sheep…
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Sexual Past
Russell Moore (@drmoore) has some sage counsel for a young woman who wants to know how much she should know about her boyfriend’s sexual past. This is sound, biblical advice, and I commend it to you. “How Much Do I Need to Know About My Potential Spouse’s Sexual Past? My Response” by Russell Moore
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Josh Harris at Boyce College
Josh Harris, Al Mohler, and Russell Moore will be the featured speakers at Boyce College’s conference for high school students on March 19-20, 2009, and there is still time for students and youth groups to sign-up. The theme for the conference is “No Idols: Calling Students to Single-hearted Devotion.” Grammy-nominated Boyce College student “Flame” will perform, and “Shane and Shane” will be leading the worship in music for the weekend. Speakers / Lodging / Schedule / Registration / Contact Last year’s conference was a great success, and I expect this one will be even better. It will be a Christ-exalting, gospel-centered, Bible-focused weekend. So please tell your pastor or youth…
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A Make-believe Christian Infiltrates Thomas Road Baptist Church
Gina Welch is Jewish and an atheist. In her new book, In the Land of Believers, she chronicles her two-year sojourn among the members of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. “I wanted to know what my evangelical neighbors were like as people, unfiltered and off the record, not as the subjects of interviews conducted by the ‘liberal media.’ I wanted to try to take them on their own terms. Who, exactly, did they think they were? Why were they so determined to convert non-Christian America? And how were they going about it?”