The new album from Sojourn Music has just released today. You can download the music now and/or buy the vinyl next month. See the trailer above for a sample of the music. It sounds like this will be another great album from Sojourn.
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Gender-bending News Report
Sign of the times alert. Here’s the opening paragraph from a recent news report: Woman charged in transgender beating at McDonald’s ROSEDALE, Md. — An 18-year-old woman has been charged in an attack on a transgender woman over using a McDonald’s restroom in a Baltimore suburb —an incident captured on video by a McDonald’s employee. This is a sad story, and we should be outraged at the crime reported here. Nevertheless, the events in the report aren’t what I want to focus on. Instead, I want to highlight a subtlety in how the story is written that may go unnoticed. Notice that the victim is designated as a “transgender woman,” and…
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Adrian Warnock Debates Rob Bell
The British radio program “Unbelievable?” hosted a fascinating discussion between Rob Bell and Adrian Warnock. This program may be as close as we’ll get to hearing Rob Bell debate his book with an evangelical. I think Warnock does a good job of engaging Bell with tough questions, even though Bell’s responses still leave much to be desired. You can download the audio here or listen below. [audio:http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/57af5a35-8b49-4c58-b283-fe25e4fe2d97.mp3] One item of note: Reviewers have criticized Bell’s book for not citing sources for his exegetical and historical claims. In this interview, however, Bell cites Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament for his definition of the Greek word aiÅn—that it does not…
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Rob Bell on the Cover of TIME
TIME magazine’s cover story this week is about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. Here is John Meacham’s one line explanation of what the fuss is about: “[Bell] suggests that the redemptive work of Jesus may be universal — meaning that, as his book’s subtitle puts it, ‘every person who ever lived’ could have a place in heaven, whatever that turns out to be.” Every year during Easter season, the news weeklies like to feature stories that tweak traditional Christian belief (for example, The Gospel of Judas, the tomb of Jesus, etc.). For these publications, Holy Week has become heresy week. I think it says something that Bell’s book has now…
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The Nigerian Witness
I flew to Chicago Tuesday morning to attend The Gospel Coalition conference, and I took a cab from the airport to my hotel. As I was sitting in the backseat formulating my strategy for sharing the gospel with my Nigerian driver, the driver starts singing. “What are you singing,” I asked. He replied, “I’m singing to my God. I must always sing to my God!” It turns out that this was his strategy for sharing the gospel with me! The rest of the trip was a delight. We talked about life, the gospel, and the nature of true Christianity. We prayed for each other, and then he gave one final…
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Bullhorn Guy
I had occasion earlier this week to go back and watch one of Rob Bell’s NOOMA videos from seven years ago. This one is titled “Bullhorn.” When I first saw this about six years ago, I didn’t know much about Bell. So I walked away with one question: Is Bell’s problem with the messenger (the Bullhorn Guy) or with the message? There was an ambiguity about it then. But I guess not so much now. Note that he even uses the phrase “love wins.”
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The Victory in My Disgrace
Is there anything more difficult in Christianity than loving your enemy and forgiving them? And yet Jesus is able to do in us what we would never do ourselves. I am grateful to God for this young woman’s powerful testimony. I think you will be too. “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15). (HT: Tim Challies)
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Don Miller: Who should run the church?
Donald Miller asks an interesting question at his website: “Should the Church be Led by Teachers and Scholars?” His contention is that unlike the original disciples who were fisherman and tradesman, the Christian church today has ceded its leadership to the academics. Churches today are basically schools that are run by teachers. As a result, we have a lot of arguing about doctrine in our churches and not enough doing Jesus’ commands. Miller writes: “Church divisions are almost exclusively academic divisions. The reason I don’t understand my Lutheran neighbor is because a couple academics got into a fight hundreds of years ago. And the rest of the church followed them…
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Albert Mohler on Qur’an Burning
“Christians are not called to burn the books of other religions. We are not called to publicity stunts that put lives at risk and subvert the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. Such actions deserve only the most severe condemnation. But even the condemnation serves its purpose — to gain publicity.” Read the rest here.
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Cal Thomas on Qur’an Burning
Cal Thomas writes about the pastor who burned the Qur’an: “Terry Jones is a cipher. Like those clowns who makeup the family-only Westboro ‘Baptist’ Church in Kansas, Jones does not represent the example of Jesus, but is a grand stander who seeks attention for himself. More than two [dozen] people died in Afghanistan. The murderers said Jones’ burning of the Koran was the reason. Again, those killers might well have found another excuse for their acts, but Americans — and especially ministers who claim to be acting in God’s name — ought not to be providing more fuel to an already incendiary situation.”