Jim Hinch argues in The American Scholar that evangelicalism is on the decline in America. This thesis is not new. He’s accessing trends in polling data that evangelicals have been aware of for years. The article focuses on the demise of Robert Schuller and his Crystal Cathedral as a parable of what’s happening in evangelicalism writ large. Hinch then argues that Rob Bell’s flight from the pastorate and from his own megachurch is a leading indicator of where younger evangelicals are trending. In short, they’re leaving the movement. And in Bell’s case in particular, they’re leaving the church altogether. Hinch writes:

In 1998 when I was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, Pastor Tommy Nelson delivered a series of messages in chapel on the “12 Landmines of Ministry.” I have never forgotten these sermons. They grow out of the experience of a seasoned pastor, and they are very practical. You will have to adapt these to your own ecclesiological context (e.g., he’s not a congregationalist), but I still think there are some very helpful things in here both for pastors and for those training to be a pastor. There are four messages, each of which contains three landmines. You can download or listen to them below.

False teaching often comes from imposters who are not really Christians (2 Tim. 3:8). Sometimes error comes from those who are Christians (Gal. 2:11). At other times, it comes from those whose spiritual condition is not altogether clear. In any case, pastors have a responsibility to refute error whatever its source (Titus 1:9). But what’s the point of confronting error? I think we have to be careful here. One of the character requirements of the pastor is that he not be pugnacious—that he not be the kind of guy who walks around with a theological chip on his shoulder just waiting for someone to knock it off (1 Tim. 3:3).…

The American Heritage Dictionary defines “ghostwriter” as “one who writes for and gives credit of authorship to another.” A ghostwritten book, therefore, is one written by someone other than the name that is on the cover. The practice is fairly routine these days, even among Christian authors. Kevin DeYoung has a really helpful post today titled “Seven Thoughts on Pastors Writing Books” in which he includes some remarks on ghostwriting. DeYoung also includes a link to a conversation between John Piper and Tony Reinke from last July about ghostwriting. You can download it here, or listen to it below. Both of these are really well done, and I commend them…

The evangelical blogosphere has been having an intramural spat about the propriety of reformed rap. It’s been hard to miss, so I’m not going to rehearse each turn of the debate. The whole thing started, however, with a panel discussion at the NCFIC “Worship of God Conference” in which several of the panelists said that Christian rap falls short of Christian faithfulness. You can read a round-up of the whole brouhaha from Joe Carter.

Last month Kirsten Powers contributed an article to Christianity Today explaining her unlikely conversion to Christ. Over the weekend, Powers appeared on FOX News with the same story. This is really good stuff. Watch it above.