When I called D’Souza, he confirmed that he was indeed engaged to Miss Joseph, but did not explain how he could be engaged to one woman while still married to another. When asked when he had filed for divorce from his wife, Dixie, D’Souza answered, “Recently.” According to San Diego County (Calif.) Superior Court records, D’Souza filed for divorce only on Oct. 4, the day I spoke with him

If I am reading the current situation correctly, we often seem to be living in the past, trying to recapture the halcyon days of Calvin’s Geneva, or the Puritans, or the continental Reformed scholastics, or the Dutch Second Reformation, or the southern Presbyterians, or the Afscheiding, or whatever. Here the temptation to hagiography that avoids critical treatments or pesky discussions of historical development is great.

In a Gospel perspective, this is a healthy development. It is good that non-believers know that they are, in fact, not believers. Cultural Christianity is not Christianity, and no one will find salvation through merely identifying as Christian. The disappearance of cultural Christianity will weaken the culture, but it should strengthen the church. The church, after all, had better know the difference between authentic Christian faith and “fuzzy fidelity.”

A little dignified respect is in order, for the sake of God’s image if for nothing else. And most crucially, as we look at the fine print of some present controversy may our eyes not become so squint that we can no longer behold the wonders of being God’s children and the beauties of God’s world.

A couple of months ago, I made a joke and asked if there were any yankees (or maybe non-Southerners) in the crowd (don't remember the exact words). But, I do remember that more than half of the attendees raised their hands, much to my surprise. When I asked several, they explained why. As new people in the community, they found it hard to connect in established churches, but here they found relationships in the church plant and are now growing in their faith (or taking steps toward faith).

Just to be clear, this is not a post against “mom blogs”, or whatever they’re called. If you write a mom blog, that’s cool with me. This is a post to encourage the moms who tend to freak out and feel like complete failures when they read the mom blogs and mom Facebook posts.

It is often said by commentators you are the back of your baseball card. That is, you are defined by facts. The same is true of the Child of God. They are what they are according to God’s Word and not how they feel about themselves at any given moment.   I realized the other... Continue Reading

When Dr. John Yeo was presented to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as a newly elected assistant professor of Old Testament, he signed the seminary's book of confessional heritage in August, agreeing to teach in accordance with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

Love is not driven by what we like or don’t like about the church (Jesus’ love wasn’t, was it?). Christian love is minimum sentiment, maximum commitment, isn’t it? (See 1 Corinthians 13!) Have you drifted from the basic Jesus-like life-style involved in loving the church? I would not be the first minister to be concerned about that (whoever wrote Hebrews knew all about this—see Hebrews 10:24-25).

We found that parents who teach their kids a children's catechism, and then try to learn an adult one for themselves often find the process confusing. The children are learning one set of questions and answers, and the parents are learning another completely different set. So New City Catechism is a joint adult and children's catechism