I have been on vacation for the past week, and this morning I had occasion to visit the First Baptist Church of Pell City, Alabama. I didn’t know anything about the church or the pastor as I walked into the sanctuary for morning worship. So, I was delighted to find how God-honoring it turned out to be. Pastor John Thweatt preached on Galatians 2:20, and the sermon was exceptional. I’m writing about my experience this morning because I think it’s worth noting when you come across something valuable. I have heard many Southern Baptist preachers, and there simply aren’t that many anymore who open up their Bible, explain the meaning…
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Rod Dreher on the Pope’s Recent Clarification
Rod Dreher comments on the Pope’s recent clarification that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church: “It’s the pope’s job to explain and defend Catholic teaching, which makes unique and exclusive truth claims. It would be logically inconsistent for the pope to affirm Catholic teaching while asserting that churches proclaiming contradictory things are equally correct.
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Are Mormons Christian?
Dr. R. Albert Mohler finishes up his debate with Orson Scott Card over whether Mormons are Christians or not. Mohler’s last essay has words that relate to our earlier discussion about “the Great Tradtion.” Here’s how his summarizes his view that Mormons are in fact not Christian:
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Are Empires Evil?
It is pretty common to hear American academics labeling America as an “empire.” In June of 2006, for instance, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hosted the annual meeting of The Historical Society, the topic of which was “Globalization, Empire, and Imperialism in Historical Perspective.” A theme that appeared in the essays presented at the conference was the comparison of the United States to the various imperial regimes of world history.
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Is America an Empire?
Last fall, Hugo Chavez stood before the United Nations and accused America of being an empire and charged President Bush with being the Devil incarnate (source). Many Americans wrote off Chavez’s rant as the raving of a crackpot dictator. What many people don’t know is that Chavez’s tirade against “American imperialism” reflects a mainstream view among many people both within and outside of the United States.
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Why do they hate us?
A must-read piece appears in Sunday’s Washington Post. It’s written by Muslin writer Mohsin Hamid. During a recent trip to Dallas, a man in a bookstore asked Hamid, “Why do they hate us?” The Dallas man was asking why the Islamic world hates the United States so much. The rest of the article is an answer to that question. The answer boils down to this:
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Why Al Qaeda Supports the Emergent Church
Believe it or not, Frank Pastore really argues that Al Qaeda supports the Emergent Church. His basic argument is this. If the American church were vibrant and healthy, then America as a nation would have the resolve required to defeat terrorists. Since the Emergent movement weakens the church, the nation’s resolve to defeat terrorists is weakened too. Therefore, Al Qaeda supports the Emergent church. Kind of a stretch, huh? While I’m no fan of Emergent, I do think Pastore’s piece is a bit heavy on the Constantinian triumphalism (of which I am not a fan either). The article has lots of other problems, but here’s the whole thing anyway: “Why…
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Surprised By Virtue
Newsweek‘s Susannah Meadows spoke with Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and a practicing evangelical himself, about how evangelicals have responded to news of Senator David Vitter’s moral problems. Cromartie responds: “What one has to understand is that classic Christianity believes that people are fallen and desperately need a redeemer. If they’re authentic Christians, they understand that but for the grace of God, they too could fall. Evangelicalism likes to pride itself on being magnanimous and forgiving. It ought to be the case that evangelicals, while not condoning such behavior, are not surprised by such sinful behavior. I’m not surprised by vice.…
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Is this the end of the Plame Game?
I’ve written too much on this story over the last two years not to mention this new (final?) development. From the Washington Post: “A federal judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband against Vice President Cheney and other top officials over the Bush administration’s disclosure of Plame’s name and covert status to the media.” But perhaps the most important line from the story: “No one was charged with the crime of intentionally disclosing Plame’s covert identity.” Whether or not this will be the end of the so-called “Plame Game” remains to be seen. But it needs to be.
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Giuliani: Abortion Not a Litmus Test for Judges
Rudy Giuliani says today that he won’t use Abortion as a litmus test in appointing judges to the federal bench. The Associated Press quotes Giuliani: “Abortion is not a litmus test. Roe v. Wade is not a litmus test. No particular case is a litmus test. That’s not the way to appoint Supreme Court justices or any judge.”