Ian Lovett at The Wall Street Journal tells the story of what is happening to theological education in the mainlines. The schools are going the way of the dodo. Mainline Protestant seminaries are facing an existential crisis after a decade of mounting red ink. Enrollment has fallen by nearly 25% over the past decade, according to the Association of Theological Schools, an accrediting agency. Mainline churches, where membership has been falling for decades, can support fewer full-time pastors than in the past. Denominations are pulling back their financial support for seminaries, while the cost of educating students is still going up. As a result, some of the oldest and most…
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A time for moral clarity
Like you, I’ve been watching with dismay and disgust as events have unfolded in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend. There has been a naked display of racism and white supremacy. If ever there were a time for evangelical Christians to speak with biblical conviction and moral clarity, now is the time. In doing so, no one should be taking their cues from the president of the United States on how to do this. Both this weekend and in his campaign, he has not shown moral clarity or leadership in this area (although as I write, there is an update). Rather, we should be taking our cues from scripture, which is…
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Albert Mohler comments on North Korea and Just War
On Friday’s episode of “The Briefing,” Albert Mohler offered comments on Just War theory and how it applies to the President’s authority to wage war against North Korea. Mohler argues, The comments made by Dr. Robert Jeffress have engendered a lot of conversation. But without just looking at those comments let’s look at the larger questions and how Christians have fought through these issues consistent with Scripture throughout the centuries. In the first place we need to understand that the Bible is clear about the role of government. In Romans chapter 13, government, as established by God, is one of God’s gift to humanity in order to establish order in…
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Poll: Is it ever right to be angry at God?
We have good reason to be angry at God… — Denny Burk (@DennyBurk) August 12, 2017 Last Spring, I posted a tweet and a blog that turned out to be more controversial than I ever anticipated. In both postings, I made the case that it is always wrong to be angry at God. Many readers disagreed. I am conducting an informal poll to find out how controversial this question really is among readers. Please weigh-in above.
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The de facto “affirming” church
Wesley Hill has waded into the discussion about the proper deployment of the term “orthodoxy” when it comes to current controversies about sexuality. I won’t rehash the whole debate here. But to summarize, James K. A. Smith and Alan Jacobs have recently made the case that those who affirm homosexual relationships and same-sex marriage can nevertheless be “orthodox” Christians. An affirmation of untraditional sexual behavior need not nullify an affirmation of the creeds. Hill basically agrees with them about this. Hill is always thoughtful and reasonable, and his post yesterday is no exception. He also has been a consistent opponent of homosexual relationships and same-sex marriage, and I am very…
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Are evangelicals becoming more open to gay marriage?
I wrote an article about seven years ago on what the bible teaches about homosexuality. That essay begins with a discussion of Brian McLaren’s then recent affirmation of committed homosexual relationships. It is strange to read that essay now and to consider in retrospect how quickly McLaren faded from evangelical view. At the time, the “emerging church” still had some purchase within the evangelical movement. Now that entire project is defunct and so are its major proponents. They pushed the very edges of the leftwing of the evangelical movement until they pushed themselves right out of the movement. Many of them did so by adopting unorthodox positions on sexuality. The…
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N. T. Wright offers brief commentary on transgenderism
N. T. Wright penned a letter to the editor of The Times of London this morning expressing his thoughts about “gender-fluid” children. Responding to articles about gender identity confusion–and even trans-speciesism–in children, he writes: The confusion about gender identity is a modern, and now internet-fuelled, form of the ancient philosophy of Gnosticism. The Gnostic, one who “knows”, has discovered the secret of “who I really am”, behind the deceptive outward appearance (in Rifkind’s apt phrase, the “ungainly, boring, fleshy one”). This involves denying the goodness, or even the ultimate reality, of the natural world. Nature, however, tends to strike back, with the likely victims in this case being vulnerable and impressionable…
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Rosaria Butterfield weighs-in on 4 stages of evangelical affirmation of gay marriage
Earlier this week, I posted “Four stages of ‘evangelical’ affirmation of gay marriage,” which traces out a basic trajectory I have observed among those who jettison their biblical beliefs about marriage. Almost immediately, readers pointed out stages that I missed, and I thought of at least one on my own. Rosaria Butterfield wrote to me with an additional stage that I thought worth sharing with you. She writes, I also appreciated your blog post on the 4 stages. I wonder, though, if you missed a stage–somewhere between point 1 and point 2. I believe that the refusal to take a stand happens when someone buys into the sexual orientation identity…
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Four stages of “evangelical” affirmation of gay marriage
There is much confusion among evangelicals about what the Bible teaches about sexuality and marriage. And yet, these are precisely the issues that are most contested in our day. As a result, many evangelicals are caving to social pressure to accept gay marriage. I have noticed a pretty consistent progression among those who eventually embrace gay marriage. It goes like this: (1) Oppose gay-marriage: Every evangelicals starts here, or at the very least they appear to start here. (2) Oppose taking a stand on the question: Persons in this stage are becoming aware of how offensive the traditional view is to those outside the church. Their initial remedy is to…
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As sweet as apple pie and as pure as Christmas
Somehow I’ve gone my whole life until now without reading Wilson Rawls’s classic Where the Red Fern Grows. My wife recently began reading it to our children, and that is what motivated me to get into it myself. Tonight I ended up finishing it well before they did, and I have to say that I really loved it. I’m sure I would have enjoyed this book as a boy. I certainly relished it as a man (although I think I have something in my eye). In her introduction to the story, Clare Vanderpool describes the book this way: Wilson Rawls’s beloved tale taps into the wellspring that runs deep in…
