Yesterday, the four men running for President of the Southern Baptist Convention participated in a forum discussion about their vision for the SBC. Many thanks to SBC Pipeline for convening and hosting this event. Here are the candidates: Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY) Randy Adams, Executive Director of the Northwest Baptist Convention Mike Stone, Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church (Blackshear, GA) Ed Litton, Pastor of Redemption Church (Saraland, AL) As far as I’m concerned, the best part of this video is listening to each of these men’s testimonies. They blessed me beyond words. It was also good to hear these brothers explain why they…
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A Conversation with Aaron Renn
It was a real pleasure to speak with Aaron Renn on his podcast last week. He titled the episode “Complementarianism and Its Discontents,” and it was a wide-ranging conversation from personal testimony to the current landscape of complementarianism. Aaron is a fascinating guy who writes really stimulating material on what it means to be male and female. In fact, one of the reasons he invited me on the show is due to my recent interaction with an essay he wrote for the Masculinist a couple years ago. He made the case that complementarianism is a Baby Boomer theology that is likely to fade as the Baby Boomers age out. I…
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Burying the Gospel under Trash
I love Spurgeon. No one says it like he does. I’ve been working on my sermon for Sunday and in preparation just finished reading Spurgeon’s sermon on 2 Cor. 5:14 titled “Under Constraint.” In one section, he confronts the indifference that some Christians display toward false teachers and their error. I think Spurgeon’s intensity reflects that of the apostle Paul. This is a relevant word today, and we need to hear this: He who does not hate the false does not love the true; and he to whom it is all the same whether it be God’s word or man’s, is himself unrenewed at heart. Oh, if some of you…
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Senator Tim Scott Targets CRT Head-On
Last night, Senator Tim Scott gave the GOP response to President Biden’s speech to the nation (read here or watch below). In many ways it was an ordinary political speech, focusing on policy alternatives to the opposing party. In other ways, it was extraordinary. Senator Scott talked openly about his faith. He spoke about his impoverished upbringing and “a praying momma” that kept him from going into a very dark place. He also talked about his conversion to Christ, proclaiming that “becoming a Christian transformed my life.” And then he concluded with words that are absolutely extraordinary to hear in a modern political speech: I am standing here because my…
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Do you know what happens to you after you die?
Several years ago, I was guest-preaching in a church in another state. After I was done I had an interesting confrontation. I preached from 2 Corinthians 1 where Paul talks about his sufferings as an apostle and about how he constantly faced death because of the gospel. On numerous occasions during his ministry, Paul believed that he would surely die. Paul says that when the clouds began to gather and he felt he was about to perish, the thing that got him through was knowing that even if he died, God would raise him up. 2 Corinthians 1:9 “We had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we…
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Resurrection Hymn
O Jesus, Savior of my life, My hope, my joy, my sacrifice, I’ve searched and found no other one Who loves me more than you have done. So I denounce my lingering sin Whose power You have broke within My ever weak and faithless frame. Its vigor’s crushed in Jesus name. For your death did at once proclaim, The Father’s glory and my shame. And you did seize my cup of guilt And drank all that the chalice spilled. No condemnation now I dread Because you went for me instead To bear the curse and wrath and rage, To pay the debt I would have paid. Yet your work finished…
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Doubt Is a Sin, and Jesus Never Sinned
The Roman Catholic theologian George Tyrell famously criticized the theological liberalism of Adolf Harnack with these words: “The Christ that Harnack sees… is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.” Tyrell’s depiction of Harnack’s project stands as a warning against a temptation that we all face whether we realize it or not—the temptation to project our own values and ideals onto Jesus and then to use this man-made Jesus to support those values and ideals.1 In some ways this temptation is understandable. After all, the writer of Hebrews assures us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable…
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Southern Baptists Prepare To Expel Gay-affirming Church
The Associated Press reports on items of controversy facing Southern Baptists at the Executive Committee meeting next week. Among other things, the report states: On the agenda [is] a recommendation that a church in Kennesaw, Georgia, be ousted from the SBC because it accepted LGBTQ people into its congregation, contravening Southern Baptist doctrine… Jim Conrad, the pastor of Towne View Baptist Church in Kennesaw, said he’s at peace with the likelihood that his church will be “disfellowshipped” by the executive committee during its meeting Monday and Tuesday. But Conrad sees broader challenges for the SBC as its stances on various sensitive issues are questioned from inside and outside. “The problem…
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A Christian Podcast with a Positive Outlook on CRT
Mike Bird alerted me over the weekend to The Two Cities Podcast dealing with Critical Theory (CT) and its offshoot Critical Race Theory (CRT). I share it not to commend its positive outlook on CT and CRT but to show how Christian defenders of Critical Theory tend to make their case. I don’t think that any of the speakers are proponents of CT/CRT per se. Rather, they seem to be defending CT/CRT against Evangelical “paranoia” about them. For them, Evangelical alarm about CT/CRT is unjustified. Below is a brief summary, which I offer without comment. Obviously, all summaries are reductive, and there is much more to the podcast than what…
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Can we eat the meat and spit out the bones of CRT?
I think Todd Pruitt is exactly right about the “eat the meat, spit out the bones” approach to Critical Theory and its offshoots. It’s not that you can never find the occasional insight. It’s that there is no insight there that can only be found there, and it’s a dangerous source to send people to. Pruitt writes: ‘Few (if any) would say that there are no true statements or insights to be found within Critical Theory or its offshoots. The question is whether Critical Race Theory offers unique and helpful insights without being laden with the profound errors of Critical Theory. I say no. Consider the prosperity gospel. Kenneth Copeland says…
