Union University hosted an important conference this past weekend titled “Baptist Identity II Conference.” Those who follow the intramural debates among Southern Baptists will be interested in the guests who were invited to speak at this event. The audio from the conference is now available from Union University’s website. At this website, you can sign up for Union’s podcast, which also includes all of the audio from this event. Among others, speakers include:
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John Piper Podcast
In my humble opinion, the best preacher alive today is Pastor John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I love John Piper, his vision of God, and his desire to spread a passion for the supremacy of Christ. Dr. Piper’s weekly sermons are now available free of charge via podcast. If you have iTunes, it’s very simple to subscribe. Click on this link, and follow the directions. If you are not into podcasting, you can easily download the weekly sermons from the Desiring God website: click here. I’ve been listening to Piper’s weekly sermons since 1999, and the Lord has used them mightily in my own life. So…
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More on Sheri Klouda
The controversy over Sheri Klouda spilled over onto television sets across the metroplex last night as the ABC affiliate in Dallas did a feature on Klouda’s departure from Southwestern Seminary. You can watch the video by clicking here.
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N. T. Wright on the Episcopal Church USA
The leader of the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA) has been trying to downplay the American church’s radical departure from orthodoxy. Commenting on conservative Episcopal congregations who are breaking away from the American church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says that the conflict is more about “biblical interpretation” than about homosexuality. She contends that “We have had gay bishops and gay clergy for millennia. The willingness to be open about that is more recent.”
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Klouda Controversy in the Star-Telegram
Sheri Klouda (an alumna of Criswell College) and Ben Cole (Southern Baptist gadfly) contribute a pair of articles in today’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Both Op-Ed’s appear under the heading “To teach or to exercise authority over a man,” a quotation from 1 Timothy 2:12.
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Believing Scripture but Playing by Science’s Rules
Apparently, establishment evolutionists think that their worldview and epistemology are the default settings for human consciousness. At least that’s the impression I get when reading about how some science professors are reacting to Ph.D. candidates who believe in young earth creationism. The New York Times reports that some science Professors would like to exclude young earth creationists from studying at their schools, even if the students are competent and qualified.
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Abortion and Capital Murder
Under the current regime of Roe v. Wade, it is legal for a mother to have her unborn child killed at any stage of pregnancy. Yet this week a San Antonio father was convicted of one count of capital murder for killing his unborn child (read the story). This tragic story here in Texas highlights the inconsistency and injustice of abortion-law in the U.S. In Texas it is a capital offense to kill an “unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.” Currently, there are at least 36 states that have such homicide laws defining a fetus as a person. Yet abortion remains legal in the U.S.…
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Global Warming and the Christian Conscience
I do not claim to be an expert on global warming or to have mastered the scientific literature on the subject. But I do think that it is important for Christians to consider the claims of certain evangelicals concerning global climate change. The “Evangelical Climate Initiative” (endorsed by evangelical luminaries such as Rick Warren) says that,
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Porn Ministry Back in the News
A year or so ago I did a series of posts on the so-called “XXX Church,” an online community aimed at evangelizing porn stars and porn addicts. The XXX Church is back in the news this week as their ministry has set up a booth at the world’s largest porn convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Southern Baptists Taking a Hit in the Wall Street Journal?
John Wilson writes in today’s Wall Street Journal about Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton’s “New Baptist Covenant.” I am happy to read that Wilson is not too keen on this new coalition of “above the fray” Baptists (a.k.a., moderate and liberal Baptists). Even though the former Presidents are Baptists, it still takes a lot of chutzpah for two politicians to pose as the new uniters of Christendom, especially when the big meeting is set to take place in 2008 right in time for the Presidential primaries. The whole thing smells more of politics than of piety. So I share Wilson’s low estimation of the so-called “New Baptist Covenant.”