Michael Foust of the Baptist Press does a fantastic job summarizing the conversation that Southern Baptists are having about the doctrine of salvation. As is well-known by now, recent dialogue has been focused on responding to the “Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation.” Foust overviews responses and rejoinders from Albert Mohler, Jerry Vines, Malcolm Yarnell, Eric Hankins, Chris Roberts , Roger Olson, Bob Hadley, Tom Ascol, and Dave Miller. For those of you who haven’t had time to follow the countless blog posts and rejoinders related to this debate, Foust is your one-stop spot to catch up on the heart of the discussion. Read…
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Behold the Horror of Abortion
China has forced its citizens to endure its gruesome “one child” policy for 30 years now. The law allows urban families to have only one child and rural families to have two children if their first child is a girl. Those who get pregnant beyond the legal limit of children are forced either to pay a fine or to abort their unborn child. For years, we have heard horrific stories of forced abortions in China —women coerced by their government to have their own babies killed.
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Does the Psalmist Believe in the Afterlife?
Do dead saints praise the Lord? The Psalmist says that they don’t. Read for yourself from Psalm 115:17-18: The dead do not praise the LORD, Nor do any who go down into silence; But as for us, we will bless the LORD From this time forth and forever. Praise the LORD! For those of us grew up in churches that teach about saints praising God in the afterlife, this text can come across as quite a jolt. It reads as if departed saints are just dead. No praise. No afterlife. Just dead.
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The Playful Puppies Bible
Just when I thought I’d seen everything, here comes the “Playful Puppies Bible.” From the publisher’s description: If you love puppies, you will love this Bible! Inside you will find 12 color pages of adorable puppy photos with inspirational thoughts that will encourage you day after day. The Playful Puppies Bible is just the right size to take along wherever you go. Features include: * Presentation page for gift giving * Ribbon marker * Words of Christ in red * 12 pages of adorable puppy photos, Scripture references, and inspirational thoughts * The entire Bible in the New International Version (NIV) Well don’t that just beat all? After all, who…
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Russell Moore on the SBC, Racism, and Fred Luter
Russell Moore’s article in the most recent issue of Southern Seminary magazine is about the SBC and racism, and it is a must-read. It’s impossible to understand the significance of Fred Luter’s candidacy for president without remembering where Southern Baptists have come from. We all have our stories, but Moore shares one of his. He writes: One of my earliest memories is of a substitute Sunday school teacher in my Southern Baptist church chastening me for putting a coin in my mouth. “That’s filthy,” she said. “Why, you don’t know if a colored man might have held that.” It might just be my imagination playing tricks on me, but it…
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Challies’ Disagrees with Piper about Christianity’s “Masculine Feel”
Tim Challies offers a counterpoint to John Piper’s claim that Christianity has a “masculine feel.” Challies writes: John Piper sparked quite a storm with his biographical message on the “frank and manly” J. C. Ryle. One of his conclusion was that Christianity is meant to have a masculine feel to it… I find that I do not agree. For those of you who are given to over-reaction, just breathe—I am allowed to disagree and I’m sure Piper is just fine with people disagreeing. If you don’t have a category for charitable disagreement on secondary matters, you need to develop one! I still love the man, but want to offer an…
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Progressive Christian Scorn for Conservative Christians
Here’s a thoughtful post from Timothy Dalrymple chastising “progressive evangelicals” who publicly blame conservative Christians for the culture wars that have given Christianity a bad name. He concludes, There is a growing genre — call it Progressive Christian Scorn Literature — about the scorn progressive Christians have for conservative evangelicals. It seems to be celebrated on the Left as a kind of righteous comeuppance for the Christian Right, and it wins the applause of the Left for the Christian Left. But it’s wrong and it needs to be called out. It’s neither winsome, nor loving, nor constructive, nor right. It will not improve our witness because it’s soaked through with…
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Explosive Study on Children of Homosexual Parents
In the debate over gay marriage in our country, one of the chief bones of contention has to do with the effects that gay marriages have on child-rearing. There have been many studies in the past showing that children of intact biological families fare better than those of single or cohabitating families. But there have not been very many studies showing how children of homosexuals fare. Indeed in 2008, Robert George et al. observed that, The current research on children reared by them is inconclusive and underdeveloped—we do not yet have any large, long-term, longitudinal studies that can tell us much about how children are affected by being raised in…
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Kevin DeYoung’s Lectures on Preaching
When I was in seminary, Dr. Howard Hendricks used to tell us what he thought about preachers who wanted to make the Bible relevant. He thundered, “The Bible’s not irrelevant! You’re irrelevant!” What he was trying to tell us also applies to preachers who desire to mitigate what they find boring in the Bible. The Bible’s not boring! You’re boring! The point is that as communicators we should strive to have a delivery that serves and reflects the message we wish to preach. And boring sermons say in a non-verbal way something profoundly untrue about God’s word.
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Complementarianism or Patriarchy? What’s in a name?
Rachel Held Evans recently made a splash with a blog post suggesting that complementarianism is merely patriarchy masquerading under a less offensive name. Her post generated a good bit of discussion not only on her blog but on Scot McKnight’s as well. Evans is riffing on remarks that Russell Moore recently made about complementarians who are big on gender orthodoxy but not so much on orthopraxy. Here’s how Moore expressed his concern, “What I fear is that we have many people in evangelicalism who can check off ‘complementarian’ on a box but who really aren’t living out complementarian lives.” Evans agrees with this statement and then offers three reasons why…