Michael Gerson has two essays this week excoriating evangelicals for their support of President Trump—one long piece in The Atlantic and another shorter piece in The Washington Post. His basic thesis is that evangelical Trump supporters have discredited their Christian witness. Indeed, they have abandoned it altogether. In the longer piece for The Atlantic, Gerson writes: The moral convictions of many evangelical leaders have become a function of their partisan identification. This is not mere gullibility; it is utter corruption. Blinded by political tribalism and hatred for their political opponents, these leaders can’t see how they are undermining the causes to which they once dedicated their lives. Little remains of…
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Intersectionality as Religion… It’s infecting evangelicals too.
David French argues that Intersectionality is not merely an ideology but a religion. I think he is right about this. French writes: It was foolish for anyone to believe that a less Christian America would be a less religious America. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, God “put eternity in man’s heart.” Traditional Christianity and Judaism aren’t just being removed from American life; they’re being replaced. The more passive person often fills his heart with the saccharine sweetness of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. The angry activist often stokes the burning fires of intersectionality. And when commitment collides with confusion, commitment tends to win. [emphasis mine] If you are not familiar with intersectionality,…
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Was the apostle Paul married? Yes, he was. Here’s how we know.
In my sermon this morning at Kenwood Baptist Church, I made the case that the Apostle Paul was not always single but was once married. This observation emerges from Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9. You can download the full sermon here or listen below. Here’s how we know that Paul was once married. Paul writes: 8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. If we want to understand how this verse applies to us, we need first of all to whom it is addressed. Your English versions say that Paul addresses “the unmarried and the widows.”…
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NBC News article accuses Billy Graham of leaving a “painful legacy for LGBTQ people.”
NBC News has an article chronicling Billy Graham’s “painful legacy” for LGBT people. Here’s the lede: Evangelicals across the country are mourning the death of Billy Graham, an influential preacher who died in his home in Montreat, North Carolina, on Wednesday. But while some are celebrating his legacy, others are grappling with the lasting damage his actions have done to their communities. Over the course of Graham’s 99 years of life, he reached millions of Christians around the world and had an outsized impact on the national political landscape. For many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, however, Graham was a crusader against them, one whose efforts shaped the…
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It’s not conversion therapy; it’s just conversion.
Last week, Jackie-Hill Perry spoke on the campus of Harvard University for a campus student group called Harvard College Faith and Action (HCFA). For those unfamiliar with Jackie-Hill Perry, she’s a poet and a Christian who was converted to Christ out of lesbianism. She is courageous, bold, and unambiguous about the gospel and what it requires of us. Word got out on Harvard’s campus about the event, and a group of students and professors organized a protest. They demanded that the event be cancelled. When it wasn’t cancelled, some of them showed up to the event and heckled Perry from the crowd. The ruckus among protestors began days before the…
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When Billy Graham rejected theological liberalism
In the early 1940’s, the ministry “Youth for Christ” was being led by two fiery young evangelists—Charles Templeton and Billy Graham. These two men were travelling around the world together preaching at rallies and calling people to Christ. Eventually, Billy Graham would part from the ministry and begin his own evangelistic work through what would eventually become the Billy Graham association. But in those early days, Graham was tag-teaming with Templeton with Youth for Christ. At the time, very few people knew that Templeton’s faith was coming unraveled even as he was calling other people to Christ. Templeton had been converted as a young man, never went to college or…
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Does the evangelical egalitarian spectrum include those who affirm gay marriage?
Today, I just happened to be reading Sarah Sumner’s essay on “Gender” in Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Sumner has a couple of paragraphs describing the complementarian and egalitarian spectrums. She says that while all complementarians believe that husbands are the leaders of their homes, there are differences among complementarians about the degree to which women may lead in the church. Although I might quibble with some of her description, I think she has basically described the complementarian spectrum correctly. But then she writes this about the egalitarian spectrum: “All egalitarians, by contrast, believe that husbands and wives are to relate together in mutual submission rather than a marital hierarchy.…
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Five words of hope in the face of horrific evil and pain
When horrific evil unfolds before our very eyes, there is a temptation to lose sight of the verities that ought to sustain and comfort us. For those watching the aftermath of the unmitigated evil of yesterday’s shooting in Florida, here are some words of hope to cling to. Hold them close. 1. God is good all the time. “O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” (Psalm 34:8). “For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 100:5). “Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For…
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Is it okay for the state to take your child away because you won’t affirm his transgender feelings?
A thought experiment: What if you had a child who experienced feelings of gender confusion? You are a Christian, so as your child grows you try to teach him what the Bible says about how God made us male and female and how the distinction between male and female is therefore a good thing (Gen. 1:31). You teach him that our maleness and femaleness is first of all biologically defined according to our binary reproductive capacities (Gen. 1:26-27). You also teach him that it is good and right to embrace that biological reality and the responsibilities and duties that go along with it. You love your child and wish to…
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Pursue God, Not Pornography
The New York Times published an article this week about teenagers and porn-use, and the first hand accounts contained in the piece are devastating. I am not going to link to the piece here or even describe it because it is too vile to share. In fact, I regret reading it myself. It’s that bad. For those that have read it, however, I want to pass along some items that might be a little more helpful and hopeful. 1. The video above is a message preached in the chapel of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It’s an exposition of “Flee youthful lusts” in 2 Timothy 2:22 and how that applies…
