This is the first in a series of articles that will examine various doctrinal and societal challenges the evangelical church must face early in the 21st Century. Today we will look at the doctrine of open theism. Future articles will examine the Emerging Church, ecumenism, postmodernism, and a variety of other topics. Open theism is…
Earlier this year, Eric over at Evangelical Underground presented the 1st Annual Evangelical Blog Awards. He gave recognition to some of the leading sites in the Christian blogosphere. Sadly, he did not recognize those bloggers who deserve demerit. That is what I intend to do today through the 1st Annual Christian Blogosphere Awards of Demerit.…
Have you ever stopped to consider just how strange prayer is? Have you considered the implications of the fact that we, through our prayers, have the ability to interact with the God who is sovereign over all of the universe? It is a profound thought that God even changes the future (so to speak) based…
I received an interesting book from Moody last week. Entitled Perimeters of Light, the authors take on a daunting task. They seek to define some boundaries for the emerging church. Notice the lower-case “e” in “emerging,” as they are not referring to the Emergent church but to what evangelical churches are becoming in the early…
In recent weeks I have read several books addressing Christian perspectives on our North American society. Postmodern culture is, as you well know, difficult to define and understand. In fact, postmodernism almost defies definition, as one of the basic tenets of the postmodern mindset is a removal of absolute standards, even when it comes to…
My friend Rick Pearcey asked if I would consider posting this article, which is an appreciation of the ministry of Francis Schaeffer, known primarily through the work of L’Abri Fellowship, begun this month 50 years ago. As you may know, both Rick and Nancy Pearcey were profoundly impacted by the Schaeffer’s ministry. What you may…
“Rebel soldiers were starting at one end of a large room, taking women away one by one and bringing them back after they were finished with them. Helen’s first impulse was to hide and not have to bear this humiliation again. Then she thought of Jesus. He put himself forward as a substitute for us.…
In the forthcoming Sex and the Supremacy of Christ (read my review here), Al Mohler has written a chapter entitled “Homosexual Marriage as a Challenge to the Church: Biblical and Cultural Reflections.” He provides seven principles that can serve as a framework for a Christian response to the issue of homosexual marriage. They are: As…
A reader posted a question this morning that I felt I should address, in part because it is of particular interest to me, and in part because the article I was working on was just not coming together the way I had anticipated. The reader had just read through my series on Calvinism and Arminianism…
Last Friday I wrote an article I entitled Pronoun Predicaments and Gender Confusion. My readers will be happy to know, I’m sure, that I have not yet claimed my right (not a privilege, but a right!) to determine that I would like to be female. In that article I quoted Al Mohler who wrote about…
Today I’d like to reach into the Feedback Files and respond to a question I was asked quite some time ago but had filed away and forgotten about until quite recently (shame on me!). It is a good question and deserves an answer. I have removed some of the pre-amble, but the heart of the…
I love television. I love to be able to turn my mind off at the end of a hard day’s work and just lie back on the couch with nothing more to think about than who will be the next person voted off the island. I love following the lives of fictional characters whose lives…
Al Mohler recently blogged about Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transsexual who was a guest on the Larry King show. Jennifer began life as James, but went through a male-to-female sex change at the age of 43 and changed her name to Jennifer. Also appearing on the show was Dierdre Boylan, whom James married (when still…
It was a couple of weeks ago when I first heard that Petra had officially announced their retirement. One of the pioneering Christian rock bands, and for many years one of the most popular, Petra has decided to retire after 33 years of ministry. I am a little embarrassed to admit that the news hit…
In four previous articles, I have discussed the tendency of Christians to put God in a box of our own imaginations. Allow me to briefly review each of those articles before moving forward in this discussion. In the introduction we looked at the apparent conflict between God’s revelation of Himself and our tendency to put…
It is the Lord’s delight to give us what we ask of Him in prayer. With David we all ought to cry out, “O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth” (Psalm 54:2). If Christians did not believe this, there would be no reason for us to ask God of…
Love him or hate him, George Barna often presents interesting information to the church. His latest study, dated May 30, 2005, asked pastors to identify “the three books that had been most helpful to them as a ministry leader during the past three years.” There were over 200 books listed, but only 9 that were…
Since publishing this article new information has come to light. I’d encourage you to read this article also published on this site instead of this one as it contains more information and better information. The Purpose Driven Life is a runaway bestseller. In truth, it is in a category all its own. It is closing…
This is the fourth installment in a series of articles discussing the Christian tendency to put God in a box. In the first article we saw that we tend to feel insecure about God unless we have contained Him within a box in our minds and then saw that God has revealed Himself to us…
The following article was penned by Pastor, Doctor, Professor and all-around nice guy Ron Gleason and is posted here with his permission. Ron and his wife Sally are very close friends of my parents and Ron was my pastor back when we were both significantly younger and when we lived significantly closer. You can read…