“For Nellie, the horror was that a single human life had been intentionally taken. That was the point at which government transgressed its proper authority. That was the evil that had to be stopped.”

I’m not a great fan of shaking hands across the pews at the beginning of a service or acting out motions for children’s songs. My personal version of liturgical dance is limited to standing up and sitting down. I’m glad, however, when a service pushes me out of my introvert’s worship comfort zone.

I’m concerned that so many people seem willing to let others carry the supposed burden of vaccination so that they don’t have to. To me, that’s a failure of the commandment to love our neighbors: our infant neighbors, our elderly neighbors, and our immune-compromised neighbors. That’s a disease of the soul for which the only treatment is love—best shown in the God who became man to bear our infirmities in his own body.

"Clearly the congregation needs to be able to get to know its pastor, but setting a specific time limit is like a fixed-term presidency: It could impact the way the pastor behaves just to massage his popularity numbers when the key vote comes down in three or four years' time." Carl Trueman, professor, Westminster Theological Seminary

The media circus moved quickly from discussion of Akin’s remarks to a wider discussion about the legitimacy of abortion in a tough case. And some “pro-life” politicians took the bait, not only condemning Akin’s unfortunate remarks but also declaring their support for abortion in this particular case.  Let me be clear: Allowing abortion in the... Continue Reading

Akin has a Masters in Divinity from the PCA’s seminary, and proudly claims he took a political rather than a pastoral path after seminary. His denomination has not only opposed abortion in all cases, including rape, but has suggested that the number of pregnancies by rape is overstated, and even questioned the veracity of rape claims. And Akin, who in a few months could be a United States Senator, wants his religion to dictate our laws.

Covenant Theological Seminary has never taught, and in no way affirms, that the female body is capable of preventing pregnancy caused by rape.

Maybe religion really is the opiate of the masses -- just not the way Karl Marx imagined. A University of Washington study posits that worship services at megachurches can trigger feelings of transcendence and changes in brain chemistry -- a spiritual "high" that keeps congregants coming back for more.

Redemptive-historical browbeaters are scholastics out to destroy the Reformation doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. If you think that's overstating the case, take the story of David and Goliath and trace how our fathers in the faith have preached that story since the Reformation. Were all of them wrong?

Barely 70 percent of the Welsh claim any Christian loyalty whatever, and only ten percent report regular attendance at church or chapel, a figure even smaller than in Godless England… The old core Dissenting churches – Independent, Presbyterian and Baptist – each claim around one percent of the population as members.