Rachel Held Evans has recently asked readers whether or not there is room for Christians to “debate the nature of Scripture – like what we mean by ‘authority’ or ‘inerrancy’ or ‘inspiration’?” (source). In her own writings, Evans has certainly been calling these issues into question, and she has been giving answers that consistently land on the liberal end of the theological spectrum. She reveals that she herself long ago stopped believing in the “Bible’s exclusive authority, inerrancy, perspicuity, and internal consistency” (source). I for one am grateful that Evans is willing to engage this conversation. These issues do in fact relate to the nature of scripture, and I can…
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Carl Trueman on the D’Souza Matter
Carl Trueman says that the Dinesh D’Souza matter highlights the unseemly largesse that is sometimes heaped upon evangelical superstars. While he is troubled by the dissolution of D’Souza’s marriage, he writes: I confess that I find equally disturbing the idea that there are Christian groups out there willing to pay Christian leaders salaries of a $1,000,000 to head up Christian organisations and then fees of $10,000 and upwards for giving a single lecture… There is something terribly, horribly sleazy emerging in broadly reformed and evangelical quarters. As soon as your group, whether it be a conference or a coalition or college, starts to be influenced in its choice of ‘leader’…
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Make Way for the Metro-Evangelical
Andy Crouch has a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal about evangelicals in the city. He writes: Though the American evangelical movement is often stereotyped as rural and provincial, it has actually had its greatest success in the suburbs and exurbs, where entrepreneurial pastors found cheap land and plentiful parking to build the “megachurches” of the past generation—think Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., seating capacity over 7,000. But a new generation of church founders believes that city centers will be the beachhead of a new evangelization… “You go to the city to reach the culture,” Mr. Keller tells his congregation. Read the rest here.
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The Big Three
Desiring God has asked listeners to help them select the best of John Piper’s sermons so that they might feature them in the Desiring God app. They are asking not only for the sermon title, but also for a brief testimony of how God used the sermon to impact your life. I’m going to offer my response in this space. For me, there are three messages that stand out. They are messages that proved to be spiritual watersheds in my own life, and they are still impacting me today. “Did Christ Die for Us or for God?” Passion ’98, Austin, TX – January 1, 1998 I first heard John Piper…
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The Lord of the “Already” and the “Not Yet”
Dr. Brian Payne, professor of Christian Theology and Expository Preaching at Boyce College, preached one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard in Southern Seminary’s chapel. It’s just good, solid biblical exposition. You can watch it above, listen below, or download audio here. [audio:http://www.sbts.edu/media/audio/fall2012/20121016-payne.mp3]
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Why Abortion Is the Most Important Issue in This Election
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) — On Nov. 6, America will go to the polls and elect the next president as well as members of the House and Senate. In advance of this vote, most Americans believe that the chief issue facing the country is the ailing economy. I want to make the case that this thinking is wrong-headed and that the transcendent issue of this election is abortion. The current law of our land excludes from the human community a whole class of human beings — the unborn. Right now, under the regime of Roe v. Wade, it is legal in our country to kill unborn human beings at any stage…
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PLNTD Conference | Gospel Leadership (25% off)
From Timmy Brister: ——— Healthy church leaders in local churches are vitally important. In three weeks, the PLNTD Network is hosting a conference in Nashville focusing on cultivating gospel-driven leadership. On the weekend of Nov. 2-3, Ed Stetzer and Trevin Wax will address this important topic, namely how the gospel shapes church leaders as well as how to forge a distinctly gospel-driven philosophy of leadership. Whether you are a seminary/college student, pastor, church planter, or small group leader, this focused time of training will provide instruction and encouragement for anyone wanting to train, equip, and send out gospel-driven leaders to reach our communities for Christ. Alongside the main sessions, there…
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It’s okay to fight against homosexuality
Christy McFerren shares her gut-wrenching testimony in a recent post at the online Prodigal Magazine. The story is gut-wrenching because she has experienced powerful attractions to other women throughout her life, yet she has never given in to a homosexual identity. In fact, her whole testimony is aimed to communicate that it’s okay to fight if you’re a homosexual. It took her years to come to this conclusion, but that is where she ended up. For me the most powerful part of her testimony is in the following lines. Pay special attention to the underlined portion:
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What is an evangelical?
I am glad that Rachel Held Evans is stoking a conversation about the meaning of “evangelical.” Evans says that she herself is an evangelical, yet she defines the term in a way that can only be described as radically revisionist. I daresay that very few would recognize her definition as anything approaching what evangelicals have historically held. We all know that defining the term ‘evangelical’ can be controversial, but many observers still look to David Bebbington’s quadrilateral as a helpful outline of the defining characteristics of evangelicals.
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Younger Evangelicals Are Not Going Liberal
Joe Carter argues against the meme that says younger evangelicals are trending more liberal than their parents. Highlighting a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, he shows that younger evangelicals have not abandoned the conservative political convictions of their parents. His concluding observations are right on the money: Since evangelicals tend to put strong emphasis on the authority of the Bible, it shouldn’t be surprising that they do not support a party whose platform is, on several issues, diametrically opposed to Biblical principles. What is surprising is that such as large number of evangelicals have embraced the naïve idea that voting for a party that endorses abortion-on-demand, same-sex…
