At the end of this month (March 30-31), the PLNTD Network is hosting a great training event in South Florida focused on cultivating gospel communities. Steve Timmis and Jared Wilson are scheduled to speak, and there will be breakout sessions as well as Q&A that will likely be very beneficial to discussing and applying the content to the context of your local church.
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Albert Mohler Weighs-in on Limbaugh Apology
I appreciate Albert Mohler’s remarks today about the Limbaugh controversy. Mohler says that Limbaugh’s apology was inadequate and that there are some lessons here for Christians: Words are a symbolic representation of character. Out of a man’s heart comes his words. And that’s where Mr. Limbaugh finds himself in trouble… Christians have to be very careful—to be reminded at all times that we are judged not only by our arguments but by the very words and phrases…that we deploy in making these arguments. As a formidable public figure, Mr. Limbaugh can fend for himself. I for one would wish that he had not even in his apology suggested that in…
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Are you paying attention to Kirk Cameron?
The title of this post is a misnomer. What I really mean to ask is if you’re paying attention to the response to Kirk Cameron’s recent remarks about gay marriage on Piers Morgan’s television program (see above). Cameron did not come on the program to talk about homosexuality, and he even looked like he was trying to change the subject. But Morgan pressed him, and so Cameron answered.
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Spurgeon on the Reproach of Believer’s Baptism
“If I thought it wrong to be a Baptist, I should give it up, and become what I believed to be right… If we could find infant baptism in the word of God, we should adopt it. It would help us out of a great difficulty, for it would take away from us that reproach which is attached to us,—that we are odd, and do not as other people do. But we have looked well through the Bible, and cannot find it, and do not believe that it is there; nor do we believe that others can find infant baptism in the Scriptures, unless they themselves first put it there.”…
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The Facts about the Abortion Mandate
American United for Life have put together a helpful ad explaining what the HHS mandate controversy is all about. (HT: Mollie Hemingway)
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An Apology from Limbaugh, but the Damage Is Done
I am a Christian, and I am a social conservative. I oppose President Obama’s HHS mandate that requires employers to pay insurance premiums that cover chemical abortions, sterilization, and contraception. I support legislation that would accommodate citizens who do not want to be coerced by their government to pay for services that violate their consciences. In short, I find the HHS mandate to be an abhorrent assault on religious freedom. Furthermore, I believe it to be an open scandal that the national media narrative has turned the mandate into a debate about contraception rather than what it is—an assault upon the religious liberty of millions of Americans.
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The Central Lie of Pornography
Doug Wilson says that the central problem with pornography is its “didactic and catechetical” nature, which tends to teach men lies about women. He writes: Porn is a sex ed curriculum put together by liars and incompetents. The central wrong lesson (one easily believed by guys, because it flatters them) is that women have men’s brains encased in women’s bodies. Everybody in the whole world is hot to go. Then, when he gets married to a normal woman, and discovers that all the free sex he thought was going to be on tap . . . isn’t on tap, at least not like what he expected, and he thinks he…
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Not Your Grandfather’s Southern Baptist
The Wall Street Journal has a fantastic article on the Rev. Fred Luter, the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention. It begins this way: For months, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention has been debating whether to drop the word “Southern” from its name. But last week, citing the hassle and expense, leaders abandoned this attempt to scrub the racial overtones from the convention’s image. As it turns out, the SBC is poised to do something much more significant. Meet the Rev. Fred Luter Jr., pastor of New Orleans’s 4,500-member Franklin Avenue Baptist Church—and the man who this spring will likely become the first black president of the…
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The Gospel as Center
I was very pleased to receive in the mail today a new book edited by D. A. Carson and Tim Keller, The Gospel as Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices. This book is the work of pastors associated with The Gospel Coalition, and through fourteen chapters they unpack the theology reflected in the foundational documents of the Coalition. What that means is that this book is primer in the essentials of evangelical faith, and it is written by seasoned pastors. Contributors include D. A. Carson, Timothy Keller, Kevin DeYoung, Philip Ryken, Bryan Chapell, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ligon Duncan, Sam Storms, and many more (full table of contents below).…
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Lesbian Is Denied Communion at Mother’s Funeral
From the MSNBC report: Barbara Johnson knew last Saturday, the day of her mother’s funeral, would be difficult. But she and her lesbian partner of 20 years had no idea that the priest at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg, Md., would be a source of her grief… Johnson said the priest denied her Communion at her own mother’s funeral, telling her he couldn’t give it to her because she was gay.