Russell Moore’s reflections on the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is a must-read. He writes: “I always feared seeing my hometown turn into Armageddon, and five years ago, sure enough, that’s just what happened. As a small child, I would sit in the pews of my church and imagine, as our pastor flipped through one apocalyptic scenario after another in his prophecy charts, what our town—Biloxi, Mississippi, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico—would look like after the seals of the Book of Revelation had been opened, after all hell broke loose on the world as we knew it… “I outgrew the dispensationalism (while holding onto the gospel underneath…
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Mohler’s Homestretch
Albert Mohler announced today that his daily live radio program will come to an end in two weeks. At the end of his show earlier today, he explains why. He says ending the program is one of the most difficult decisions he’s ever had to make. Listen to him in his own words below. Start listening at 35:40. [audio:http://www.sbts.edu/media/audio/totl/2010/AMP_06_21_2010.mp3] I’ve loved “The Albert Mohler Program” and have enjoyed listening to it over the years. He talks about issues in the news in a way that no one else on radio does. When this program ends, it will be greatly missed. Be sure to tune-in these last two weeks or to…
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The New Face of Evangelicalism?
ABC News interviewed some young Christian leaders in a piece about “The New Face of American Evangelicalism.” The video is linked above (HT: Euangelion). The most important feature of the interview is not what was said, but what wasn’t said. When asked about the most important issues facing the church, none of the young Christians mentioned the gospel. All of them fastidiously avoided mention of abortion and gay “marriage.” In short, they argued that the “new face of evangelicalism” is a return to the social gospel. My only comment about this piece is that the sampling of young “evangelicals” is unhelpfully skewed. These five individuals obviously hail from the left…
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New Andrew Peterson Album
Andrew Peterson previews his new album in this video. The album will be released on July 27. (HT: Jim Hamilton)
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Acts29 Rap at SBC
A bit of comic relief followed the long and arduous session debating the GCR Task Force Report at the Southern Baptist Convention. Many of the messengers were leaving the hall when this happened, but I was there and heard the whole thing. An SBC messenger came to a microphone and offered a motion to affirm the Acts29 church planting network. But this wasn’t just any motion. This guy offered it in the form of a rap. After he finished making the motion, the chair called for a second, and the place erupted with seconds. I think everyone appreciated the light moment. The motion was subsequently ruled out of order. UPDATE:…
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The Scandal of Southern Baptist Divorce
Today, the messengers at the 2010 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention will be debating a resolution on “the scandal of Southern Baptist divorce.” According to Baptist Press, it reads, in part, that “the acceleration in rates of divorce” in SBC churches “has not come through a shift in theological conviction” but rather “through cultural accommodation.” It further says the SBC has been prophetic in confronting assaults “in the outside culture” on God’s design for marriage “while rarely speaking with the same alarm and force to a scandal that has become all too commonplace in our own churches.” Here is the last half of the resolution:
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Initial Reflections on GCR Victory
I have been at the Southern Baptist Convention this week, and today was a big day. Outsiders watching it all unfold probably thought the process looked positively Byzantine, but it really wasn’t. Southern Baptists adopted the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Report and thus took the first step in what I hope will be a long journey of renewal for our denomination. I won’t take the time here to narrate everything that happened during the deliberations on the GCR (for that read here and here), but I will make a few observations.
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Ross Douthat on Feminism
Ross Douthat writes that a the slew of female primary victors last Tuesday constitutes a victory for feminism—even though they were by and large conservative candidates. He writes: “What Tuesday’s results demonstrated, convincingly, is that America is now a country where social conservatives are as comfortable as liberals with the idea of women in high office. More strikingly, they’re comfortable voting for working mothers — for women publicly juggling careers and family obligations in ways that would have been unthinkable for the generations of female leaders, from Elizabeth I’s Virgin Queen down to Margaret Thatcher’s Iron Lady, who were expected to unsex themselves before being entrusted with the responsibilities of…
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BP Needs Reform
No, we’re not talking about British Petroleum. It’s the other BP—Baptist Press. In an editorial for the Florida Baptist Witness, state paper editors Jim Smith, Marty King and Gary Ledbetter argue that the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention is biased. They write, “Concern about Baptist Press has arisen among some Southern Baptists… over its perceived lopsided coverage of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force… “The evidence of BP’s bias against GCR is so obvious as to not require an exhaustive listing of the facts. This should suffice: over just a three-day period, BP ran four opinion pieces by Chapman totaling more than 18,000 words opposing various aspects…
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Theology for the Church
In an article today at “Between the Times,” Danny Akin and Bruce Ashford remind us that the calling of SBC seminaries is “to serve the churches of the SBC.” They issue four challenges to that end, but it was number two that caught my eye as an educator in an SBC school: “A second challenge for the seminaries is to produce ministry-minded graduates instead of seminary eggheads. The brutal fact is that seminaries sometimes produce students who can discourse on theological abstractions but who are detached from real-life ministry.”