Here’s another video from a “9Marks at 9” event at the SBC earlier this summer. This one is Danny Akin, Albert Mohler, David Platt, and Mark Dever. (HT: Marcus Glover)

Vicky Beeching is a British contemporary Christian musician and worship leader who has recorded five albums since 2002. If you have never heard of her before, then chances are that you have heard at least one of her songs. She co-wrote the popular anthem “Glory to God Forever,” and churches across the country routinely include this song during worship services. Recently Beeching posted a critical remark about Complementarianism on her Facebook page (see below), and then invited readers to respond with “BIBLICALLY BACKED UP, theologically well explained” responses. So I’ve decided to take her up on her invitation in this space. I thought this would be a great opportunity to…

Perhaps you’ve read the announcement about the upcoming debate between Albert Mohler and Jim Wallis. The debate will be hosted by The Henry Center, and they will be addressing the question “Is social justice an essential part of the mission of the church?” Jim Wallis will be arguing “Yes,” Mohler “No.” For more information about this event, go here. Why is this question important? When evangelicals disagree with one another over this issue, that is one thing. But differences over this issue between evangelicals and progressives is quite another. Oftentimes the differences between progressives and evangelicals on this question are not only about the mission of the church, but also…

The New York Times describes the perpetrator of the Norweigan massacre as a “religious, gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threat of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration to the cultural and patriotic values of his country.” Other early reports (including The Times) have highlighted an alleged religious motivation, calling him a “Christian extremist.” Others have even used the term “Christian terrorist.” The “Christian” label was seized upon by media reports after a police official in Norway called him a “fundamentalist Christian.”

Kevin DeYoung wrote a really helpful essay earlier this week on the doctrine of hell. In particular, he deals with the all too familiar meme heard from many Christians who say, “I don’t like the doctrine of hell, and I wish I didn’t have to believe in it. But it’s in the Bible, so I grudgingly accept it as truth.” I think Kevin’s response to this refrain is right on point, and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already. I would also like to add my own little postscript to Kevin’s remarks. When I was in seminary, I wrestled with my own emotional response to the doctrine…

Carl Trueman has a brief but trenchant critique of “city” theology at Reformation 21. He writes: “One thing… I did discuss was the current nonsense about cities being special which so dominates the popular evangelical imagination. Not that cities are not important: as areas where there are the highest concentrations of human beings, they are inevitably significant as mission fields. Rather, we were thinking of the `from a Garden to a City’ hermeneutic which jumps from scripture to giving modern urban sprawl some kind of special eschatological significance. Was there ever a thinner hermeneutical foundation upon which so much has been built? OK, there probably has been, but this is…

A surprising thing happened at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention last week. The messengers approved a resolution opposing the 2011 edition of the NIV. This kind of move is not unprecedented for an annual SBC meeting. Messengers approved similar resolutions in 1997 and in 2002, both of which were in response to gender-inclusive revisions of the NIV. But there was something different about the resolution that came out this year. This resolution came not from the resolutions committee, but from a single messenger who was concerned about the issue and who wanted the convention to speak to it.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the two parents in Canada who are keeping their infant baby’s gender a secret (read about it here or watch above). Why are they doing this? It’s not because there is any physiological ambiguity in the baby. They are doing this because they don’t want their child shoehorned into culturally defined gender stereotypes. Rather, they want their baby (whom they’ve named “Storm”) to make his/her own decisions about his/her own gender.

Last October, I attended the Desiring God National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I was greatly looking forward to hearing John Piper’s Q&A with Rick Warren. As providence would have it, Warren had to cancel his appearance at the last minute and delivered a pre-recorded video message instead. I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of us were very disappointed that we didn’t get to hear Piper and Warren mano a mano.