Hershel York is one of the trustees who yesterday elected David Platt as the new President of the SBC’s International Mission Board (IMB). In a blog post today, he answers the concerns that some have raised about Platt’s assuming this role. Southern Baptists who have had such concerns should read what York has to say. His commendation and exhortation at the end are particularly relevant. He writes: I’ve been in ministry all of my adult life. I’ve known Adrian Rogers, W. A. Criswell, Stephen Olford, John Stott, and many truly great men of God. I say this carefully and reverently: I have never met anyone on whom the anointing of God rests…
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The Wrong Kind of Christian
Tish Harrison Warren is an egalitarian, a priest in the Anglican Church, and a supporter of progressive causes. None of that, however, was enough to keep Vanderbilt University from kicking her ministry off campus. She has a compelling reflection in CT on how everything came unraveled for InterVarsity at Vandy. In essence, Vanderbilt said that no organization could require adherence to a creed in order to limit membership or leadership in campus organizations. The result? The university began discriminating against Christians for holding to Christian beliefs. In Warren’s article, this bit was particularly clarifying. She writes,
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It’s passed time to get serious about ISIS
Peggy Noonan has a sobering column in today’s Wall Street Journal about the threat that ISIS poses to a war-weary United States. I encourage you to read the whole thing. When you do, don’t miss this part: One of my fears in the early years of the Iraq war was that if it proved to be the wrong war—if no weapons of mass destruction were found, if sustained unrest showed Saddam Hussein was the garbage-pail lid who kept the garbage of his nation from spilling out—it would mean that at some time in the future when America really needed to fight and had to fight, she would not. I feared…
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Refusing to call evil “evil”
I just read one of the most morally confused (and indeed asinine) things I’ve ever seen on the New York Times editorial page. The author is a professor named Michael Boyle, and he argues that we must not call the ISIS terrorist group evil. Why? Because the times don’t call for moral clarity. President Bush had moral clarity, and look where that got us–a decade of war. For this reason, Boyle argues that we should avoid describing ISIS as a “cancer” like President Obama did earlier this week. Such language keeps us from seeing the world as it is. This is the logic of appeasement. It’s very similar to the…
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Kent Brantly’s remarks upon his release from hospital
I can’t tell you how full my heart is at the news of Dr. Kent Brantley’s recovery. I can only imagine how his family must be feeling to have him back after thirty very dark days of uncertainty and perhaps even of despair. The video above is the statement that Dr. Brantly made upon his release earlier today. It’s fantastic. Among other things he describes how he cried out to the Lord as the illness descended upon him, “I prayed that God would help me be faithful even in my illness and that in my life, even in my death, he would be glorified.” How grateful we should be for…
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Mohler on Ferguson: Love your neighbor, lead with empathy, don’t prejudge, wait for the facts
Albert Mohler has timely advice about how Christians ought to be thinking about the tragic shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He says that the shooting and its aftermath are an “excruciating reminder that the racial issues in America continue.” In sum, he says that Christians need to love their neighbor, lead with empathy, not prejudge, and wait for the facts. You can listen to his full remarks below or download them here. Here are some important excerpts from his remarks:
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It’s time to annihilate ISIS
Max Boot argues at Commentary Magazine that is it time to annihilate ISIS. In light of recent atrocities—which are now becoming too numerous to count—it is hard to disagree that ISIS deserves to be completely and utterly destroyed. I don’t pretend to know what the best strategy is to make that happen, but here’s what Boot writes: “What is needed now is not strongly worded condemnation of Foley’s murder, much less a hashtag campaign. What is needed is a politico-military strategy to annihilate ISIS rather than simply chip around the edges of its burgeoning empire. In the Spectator of London I recently outlined what such a strategy should look like.…
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Regretting Surrogacy
Jennifer Lahl was recently interviewed by ABC News about women who regret being surrogate mothers. A surrogacy agreement is when a woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child for someone else. In some cases, the pregnancy occurs through in vitro fertilization so that the baby is genetically unrelated to the woman who carries the child. In other cases, the woman who carries the child becomes pregnant naturally or artificially so that the child is genetically related to the woman who carries the baby. Usually, a woman agrees to receive a sum of money in exchange for being a surrogate.
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What about the Birds and Bees? – Family Life Today
In this third and final episode of the interview with Family Life Today, we discuss talking to children about the birds and the bees. We also discuss our culture’s changing definition of marriage. Can Christians have fellowship with one another while having differences over the definition of marriage? Can pastors be neutral on the issues of marriage and homosexuality? You can listen to the episode below or download it here.
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Sex for the Glory of God – Family Life Today
Here is the second episode of my interview with Dennis Rainey and Bob Lepine of Family Life Today. I’ll post episode three tomorrow. You can listen to today’s episode below or download it here. Here’s the description of the show: What did God have in mind when He created male and female? Denny Burk, a professor at Boyce College and an assistant pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, reminds listeners that sex exists for the glory of God, which means that our sexuality puts God’s glory on display. Burk talks about God’s purposes for sex: consummation, procreation, an expression of love, and pleasure. [Source]