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Independence Day 2020: Are flags in churches idolatry?
If you're on Twitter you might have concluded that July 4th was Hipster-Pastors-Complaining-About-Flags-in-Churches Day.
Billy Graham at MIT
In April 1982, during my second semester at MIT, Billy Graham came to speak at the invitation of the evangelical Christian groups on campus, including Campus Crusade for Christ, United Christian Fellowship (the MIT affiliate of Intervarsity), the Chinese Bible Study, and the MIT Seekers, affiliated with Park Street Church....
Christian parenting: Immunizing against baptized liberalism, training the mind and the sentiments, and the call to heroism
One of the biggest fears of any Christian parent is that his child will abandon the faith in which he was raised once he's away from home. Some charismatic peer or professor will attempt to convert him to a new religion, which could be anything from a different branch of...
A Wisconsin pastor on the conservative path forward
Just before the Wisconsin primary, Tom Chantry, a Reformed Baptist pastor, wrote a thorough and fun-to-read account of Wisconsin political history and culture, aimed at his mostly non-Wisconsin readership. Reading it again, three weeks after the primary, and reading his follow-up pieces, I see that it isn't just solid political...
Independence Day 2015
Happy Independence Day! Take 10 minutes to listen to a reading of the Declaration of Independence, from the Monticello website, read by Thomas Jefferson Williamsburg re-enactor Bill Barker. founding.com has an annotated version of the Declaration of Independence, with links to explanations of the the specific historical context behind the...
Toxic leadership, in churches and businesses
Rob Asghar, writing in Forbes, offers some noteworthy insights about organizations, accountability, and game-changing leaders. Asghar calls Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church, the "Enron of American churches": In life, blowhards and bullies will inevitably rise up and do their thing. In the field of management, they tend to rise up...
C. Everett Koop, RIP, father of the evangelical pro-life movement
Former U. S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop died Monday at the age of 96. Many of the headlines about his death have focused on his time as a member of President Reagan's cabinet and his breaks with conservative allies on government policies regarding tobacco and AIDS. Evangelicals of a...
Richard Roberts resigns
From an e-mail sent from Jeremy Burton at ORU: Today, a letter was sent from Richard Roberts to the Board of Regents of Oral Roberts University tendering his resignation as President of Oral Roberts University effective today, November 23, 2007. The Board of Regents will meet Monday and Tuesday, November...
Is Huckabee a Republican But?
My friend Gwen Freeman has a name for Republican politicians who seem to spend more time and energy promoting policies that run contrary to the party's grassroots platform, rather than initiatives that advance the platform. She calls them "Republican Buts," as in "I'm a Republican, but I believe this tax...
Founders Conference: David Wells to speak in Owasso
There's a great opportunity coming up later this month for Tulsa-area Christians with an interest in sound theology and a concern for the lack of interest in same which prevails in much of the evangelical realm. Dr. David Wells is professor of historical and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary....
Dobby disses Fred
Below I'm going to try to provide some cultural context for James Dobson's comment casting doubt on Sen. Fred Thompson's Christian faith (while applauding serial bigamist Newt Gingrich). But first, these folks had some worthwhile things to say on the subject: See-Dubya: Dobson has alienated a lot of people with...
Brownback in prison
World Magazine is starting a series of profiles of potential presidential candidates and first up is Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. World editor Marvin Olasky recently spent the night in Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana with Brownback. Brownback was on my list of possibles, but I think he just...
Faith and politics: when it matters, when it doesn't
Here are a couple of interesting items on the intersection between faith and politics. On RedState, Erick Erickson, a political consultant in Georgia, has an explanation for the defeat of Ralph Reed and an evangelical legislative candidate in Tuesday's Georgia Republican primaries, and it's not that voters are rejecting religious...
Online MIT, Covenant Seminary courses
It's the golden age of the autodidact. An increasing number of universities are making course materials available online for free. The materials can't be used for course credit, but they are available for one's personal enlightenment and enrichment. Two institutions where I gained some higher learning offer online course material....
"I just wanted to sing. I didn't want to be sung to."
Julie R. Neidlinger writes of a Christmas Eve service at the Church of the Living Powerpoint: And therein lies another problem: we were not a congregation, but an audience. We were performed to by a bunch of talented musicians and a music pastor and a pastor who had planned the...
Sunday sundry
Some faith-related entries of note from my blogroll. Not all of these are recent, but all are worth your time and attention. Christian Persecution Blog reports that this is a national weekend of prayer for the people of Darfur, in Sudan. You'll find some additional background information here. David Wayne,...
Is singleness a sin?
Last August, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, gave a speech ("The Mystery of Marriage") to a singles conference in which he suggested that there is something sinful about young Christians delaying marriage. He lays much of the blame at the feet of Christian men who seem to...
I was a blogger, but now I'm Reformed
I've added yet another blogroll to my sidebar. I'm now a participant in the League of Reformed Bloggers. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop blogging and take up a more wholesome hobby. I'm as addicted as ever to putting my thoughts up for everyone to see. "Reformed" in this...
The practical implications of Calvinism: Freedom from regret
The old joke is that Presbyterians sing "Que Sera, Sera" for their hymn of invitation. Discoshaman explains why this isn't so -- why Calvinism isn't fatalism, and how it can be some of the greatest evangelists of all time were men thoroughly convinced of the Reformed doctrines of grace: God...
Who ought to speak for evangelicals?
Evangelical Christianity doesn't have a Pope or a Presiding Bishop to speak with authority on behalf of such a diverse movement, which includes entire denominations like the Presbyterian Church in America and the Southern Baptist Convention, megachurches like Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, parachurch ministries like the Billy Graham...
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