RNS reports that Donald Trump has named a new religious advisory board. The full list of board members is as follows: • Michele Bachmann — Former Congresswoman • A.R. Bernard — Senior Pastor and CEO, Christian Cultural Center • Mark Burns — Pastor, Harvest Praise and Worship Center • Tim Clinton — President, American Association of Christian Counselors • Kenneth and Gloria Copeland — Founders, Kenneth Copeland Ministries • James Dobson — Author, Psychologist and Host, “My Family Talk” • Jerry Falwell Jr. — President, Liberty University • Ronnie Floyd — Senior Pastor, Cross Church • Jentezen Franklin — Senior Pastor, Free Chapel • Jack Graham — Senior Pastor, Prestonwood…
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Blaine Adamson’s Conscience: Convictions in the Workplace
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Are Christians “complicit” in Orlando?
I just read Jen Hatmaker’s viral Facebook post in which she says Christians are “complicit” in the hate that led to the Orlando shooting. Among other things, she writes: Anti-LGBTQ sentiment has paved a long runway to hate crimes. When the gay community is denied civil liberties and respect and dignity, when we make gay jokes, when we say ‘that’s so gay’, when we turn our noses up or down, when we qualify every solitary statement of love with a caveat of disapproval, when we consistently disavow everything about the LGBTQ community, we create a culture ripe for hate. We are complicit. We cannot with any integrity honor in death…
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Southern Baptists address Orlando massacre
All of us are still reeling from the news of what happened in Orlando on Sunday. When I went into church Sunday morning, I had read that 20 people were killed in a mass shooting in Orlando. After I left church, I read that the number had risen to 50. I could hardly imagine the scale of such a horror. It was even harder to contemplate what the victims suffered. Who can bear even to think of it? As I mentioned on Sunday, every person in that night club was an image-bearer of Almighty God and had lives of inestimable worth and value before God. Their murders are an unmitigated…
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The Confederate Battle flag and Southern Baptists
I got a lump in my throat today watching what unfolded on the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention. The messengers considered a resolution against the Confederate Battle flag. People spoke for and against. But it was Dr. James Merritt’s speech that proved to be the seminal moment. Among other things, he told Southern Baptists, “I rise to say that all the Confederate Flags in the world are not worth one soul of any race.” Amen. Dr. Merritt’s speech and the subsequent vote are not going to be forgotten by those who witnessed what happened. Russell Moore has put this into historical perspective over at his website. I recommend that…
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Fred Sanders on the obedience of the Son
Russell Moore recently said that Fred Sanders is a gift to the church. I couldn’t agree more. Sanders wrote a review last year of a collection of essays on the Trinity edited by Bruce Ware and John Starke. He closes his review with a brilliant summary of the obedience of the eternal Son. He writes: What’s eternal, and essential to the divine being, is Sonship, which means eternal generation and the filial generatedness that it entails. Is the obedience of the Son’s will to the Father’s commanding authority also eternal? That seems to me to be a fairly small question, and also one that needs an answer so nuanced it’s…
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The Obedience of the Eternal Son
Over the weekend, a friend sent me a copy of the 2013 article “The Obedience of the Eternal Son” by Scott Swain and Michael Allen. I want to commend this essay to anyone who has been following the recent debate about intratrinitarian relations. I also want to warn you that this is not light reading, and I may lose all but the specialists in what follows. Having said that, this article is worth your time to ponder and understand for the current discussion. I’m not going to summarize the whole article, but I will give you its thesis and highlight a handful of other passages. Here’s the thesis:
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Apparently, Christian pop music is peppier than life.
Last week, Leah Libresco wrote a piece for FiftyThirtyEight about how peppy Christian pop music tends to be. She studied thematic content in the last five years of Billboard’s year-end top 50 Christian songs. She found that the lyrical content skewed disproportionately toward hopey-gracey themes and away from sinny-judgment themes. She writes:
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A Resolution against Requiring Women to Register for the Draft and to Serve in Combat Units
The Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting will be in St. Louis next week, and it is my hope that the messengers will have the opportunity to make a statement against requiring women to serve in combat units. I have proposed a resolution with wording that derives greatly from the The Danvers Statement and from a 1998 resolution on the same topic. The committee can decline from bringing this resolution to the floor for a vote. They can recommend an edited version. Or they can recommend it as is. We’ll see next week. Until then, you can read my proposal below.
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Do not destroy… Let them fall into the pit that they dug for me
At my church this morning, Pastor Jim Hamilton preached an excellent message from Psalms 56-57. If you have a chance to listen, I commend it to you. You can download it here or listen below. I also recommend a version of Psalm 57 that a band called The Critics put to music. I actually love this song. It’s called “Do Not Destroy,” which is a line from the superscription of the Psalm: “To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.” You can listen to the song above or download it here.