At OpinionJournal.com, Charlotte Allen suggests that the new movie about William Wilberforce suppresses his Christianity: Alas, a lot of people watching “Amazing Grace,” Michael Apted’s just-released film, may get the impression–perhaps deliberately fostered by Mr. Apted–that Wilberforce was a mostly secular humanitarian whose main passion was not Christian faith but politics and social justice. Along the way, they may also get the impression that the hymn “Amazing Grace” is no more than an uplifting piece of music that sounds especially rousing on the bagpipes. I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I certainly can’t have an opinion on this question. But I sure hope that Allen is wrong.
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Graeme Goldsworthy’s According to Plan
In any given year, I teach about five sections of hermeneutics at the College where I am a professor. Beginning this semester, I modified my hermeneutics course so as to include a module on biblical theology. At the suggestion of my good friend Brian Vickers, I am requiring my students to read Graeme Goldsworthy’s introduction to biblical theology, According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible. I have been a student of biblical theology for many years now, but I had never read Goldsworthy’s primer on the topic until just this semester as I was preparing lectures. Having read the book, I can now say that I…
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Baptists Asked to Crack Down on Abusers
Here’s the lead in an Associated Press report dated yesterday, February 21: The victims’ advocates who dogged the Roman Catholic Church over sex abuse by its clergy have now turned their attention to the Southern Baptists, accusing America’s largest Protestant denomination of also failing to root out molesters. I offer two brief responses to this report.
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Review of BibleWorks7
BibleWorks 7: Software for Biblical Exegesis and Research. Norfolk, VA: BibleWorks, LLC. $349.00. For many years, the Accordance software was the gold standard for scholars and pastors working with the primary texts of biblical studies. Its main drawback was that it only worked on Macs, thus relegating the myriads of PC users to one or more of the inferior programs that were available for the Windows operating system. The release of BibleWorks 5 and 6 began to close the gap between Mac users and PC users. With the release of BibleWorks 7, however, the gap is gone, and a new standard has been set for serious students of the scripture…
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Women Teaching Men: What Does the Bible Say?
I recently hosted the “Jerry Johnson Live” radio program here in Dallas, Texas. Recent news reports about Dr. Sheri Klouda’s departure from Southwestern Seminary provoked our conversation about what the Bible says about women teaching men in the church. In the midst of taking calls from listeners, I interviewed Dr. Randy Stinson, the executive director of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
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Down with the Retrograde Regime of Roe v. Wade
The central holding of the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision was that a woman has the right to choose an abortion for any reason, up until the “point at which the fetus becomes ‘viable,’ that is, potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb.” Roe v. Wade said furthermore that “Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.”
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The Anglican Divide: A Controversy over Biblical Authority
The Associated Press reports on a meeting in Zanzibar, Tanzania of the Bishops from the worldwide Anglican Communion. As the Anglican Church is embroiled in a controversy over the moral status of homosexuality and gender, many of the orthodox Bishops from Africa refused to take communion with the schismatic Bishops from the west.
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Southern Baptist Identity Conference
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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A Pro-lifer Hazards the GOP Field
Have you noticed that there is a lot of buzz surrounding Democrats who are running for President in 2008, but not much for the Republicans? One of the reasons for this uneven coverage is certainly that the Democrats are coming out early. But another reason is that conservatives are frankly not going ga-ga over any of the Republican contenders.