If all else fails, the final step is to announce triumphantly and with a terrific celebration of grace that “Christ is, in an amoral fashion, the end of the law” and charge others with legalism if they don’t share in your antinomianism.   Tom Oden, writing in his book Requiem way back in 1995, explains... Continue Reading

But how exactly can we recognize whether someone’s teaching is prone to leading us astray or not? As I look at the best-selling Christian books in America, I see much that is mis-leading or deceptive and some that is rich and Biblically faithful. How can we tell the difference?   How Can You Tell if... Continue Reading

An EF-4 tornado struck Hattiesburg, MS two days ago causing considerable damage. While there are a number of people who were injured, by God’s grace, no deaths have been reported. The University of Southern Mississippi was in the path of the storm and has sustained damaged to several buildings. What follows is an update from... Continue Reading

In short, confessions serve to curb the power of the elders by making the limits of their power clear to the congregation and thus making them publicly accountable. This is vital, as even the church leader with the most cheerful Celtic smile and avuncular sexagenarian demeanour can fall prey to the temptations of exerting too... Continue Reading

Everyone at The Sunday Assembly seemed to believe that by adding community once a month and singing random songs, they will fill that nagging void in their life. The more I though about this, the more I wanted to stand on my chair and yell “You’re missing the point! It’s not enough!” But, perhaps the... Continue Reading

Discipline promotes God’s holiness , protects the church from infection, and restores the rebellious, making clear the seriousness of their resistance to Christ’s Word and church.   The third mark of a true church, church discipline, has a largely negative connotation in our culture, but the biblical idea is both positive and negative. A person... Continue Reading

What cannot be allowed is a confessionalism which is undisciplined in both senses of the word: where the individual does not understand that, in terms of a particular church’s public ministry, his conscience is not the ultimate court of appeal and arbiter of what he can and cannot say while being an officer in the... Continue Reading

For those in ECO the PCUSA is already fully in the rear view mirror and shrinking fast on the horizon. They are enthusiastically moving on. They are very energized, highly collegial, and joyfully working to redefine what it looks like to be faithful Presbyterian in an ever changing world. But the context of ECO is... Continue Reading

For one, we know that many of these apocryphal writings are outright forgeries, pretending to be written by someone who was clearly not the author. That fact alone raises serious questions about the reliability of their content. Second, many of these apocryphal writings contain obvious embellishments and legendary additions. For example, in the Gospel of... Continue Reading

We’re often told that people quite like Jesus, but just don’t do church. Here are 300 people who do do church, and don’t like Jesus! Perhaps it’s that people like their version of Jesus (teacher, healer, nice guy, loving and affirming, non-existent, take your pick); the reason they don’t like church is because church challenges... Continue Reading