The Wall Street Journal has a fantastic article on the Rev. Fred Luter, the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention. It begins this way: For months, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention has been debating whether to drop the word “Southern” from its name. But last week, citing the hassle and expense, leaders abandoned this attempt to scrub the racial overtones from the convention’s image. As it turns out, the SBC is poised to do something much more significant. Meet the Rev. Fred Luter Jr., pastor of New Orleans’s 4,500-member Franklin Avenue Baptist Church—and the man who this spring will likely become the first black president of the…
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The Gospel as Center
I was very pleased to receive in the mail today a new book edited by D. A. Carson and Tim Keller, The Gospel as Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices. This book is the work of pastors associated with The Gospel Coalition, and through fourteen chapters they unpack the theology reflected in the foundational documents of the Coalition. What that means is that this book is primer in the essentials of evangelical faith, and it is written by seasoned pastors. Contributors include D. A. Carson, Timothy Keller, Kevin DeYoung, Philip Ryken, Bryan Chapell, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ligon Duncan, Sam Storms, and many more (full table of contents below).…
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Lesbian Is Denied Communion at Mother’s Funeral
From the MSNBC report: Barbara Johnson knew last Saturday, the day of her mother’s funeral, would be difficult. But she and her lesbian partner of 20 years had no idea that the priest at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg, Md., would be a source of her grief… Johnson said the priest denied her Communion at her own mother’s funeral, telling her he couldn’t give it to her because she was gay.
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Did President Obama Support Infanticide?
In last week’s GOP debate, Newt Gingrich claimed that President Obama supported infanticide as an Illinois state senator. Here is the charge in Gingrich’s own words: You did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. If we’re going to have a debate about who is the extremist on these issues, it is President Obama, who, as a state senator, voted to protect doctors who killed babies who survived the abortion. There are two key claims here: (1) that President Obama supported infanticide, and (2) that the media virtually ignored it in his run for…
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Santorum is right; JFK was wrong.
Albert Mohler has a very important article over at CNN.com. He argues that Rick Santorum was right to disagree with JFK’s famous speech on religion. JFK declared that the separation of church and state was “absolute,” and Santorum rightly opposed the “absolute” part. Mohler writes:
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Black Pastors Hold the Line against Same-Sex Marriage
I am very grateful for African American pastors who are holding the line on same-sex marriage. The Washington Post tells the story of these pastors who are taking some heat over their commitment to traditional marriage. They are being accused of being on the wrong side of history on the most important civil rights issue of our day. These pastors are pushing back saying that gay marriage is not a civil rights issue. The Washington Post reports on an interview with Pastor Nathaniel Thomas:
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Franklin Graham Apologizes to President Obama
I noted last week that on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Franklin Graham suggested that President Obama might not be a Christian. Today, Rev. Graham walked that back with an apology. Here’s a bit of the report from Adelle Banks: Graham, president of the relief organization Samaritan’s Purse and the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said he now accepts Obama’s declarations that he is a Christian. “I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama,” he said in a statement. “I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for…
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Feminist Dogma Favors Race and Sex-Based Abortions
A U. S. House of Representatives committee has recently approved a bill that would prohibit abortions based on sex or race. The bill is called “The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act,” and reports say that it would “bar doctors and medical staff members from performing an abortion if they know the intent of the procedure is based on race or gender.” Representative Trent Franks is the bill’s sponsor, and he gives his rationale for the bill saying,
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Google+ Has Some Minuses
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on the progress of Google+ since the big roll-out last year. The bottom line is that it’s not doing very well. Google likes to boast that they’ve had 90 million users sign-up since its launch last June—which at first blush sounds really impressive. But it turns out that people are simply signing-up for the service and then spending little to no time on it. The crucial stat is not how many users there are but how much time users spend on the network. When you look at that stat, it paints a pretty grim picture for Google+.
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The Next President of the Southern Baptist Convention
Bob Smietana has an excellent profile of Rev. Fred Luter, the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention. I cannot overstate how excited I am about what’s going to happen in New Orleans in June. It has been a long time coming, and I am eager to raise my ballot for the first ever African American President of our denomination. Read the profile here.