Gradye Parsons, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), sat down with ruling elders from across the country to answer questions regarding the state of the church and the denomination. The question-and-answer session was part of the PCUSA’s Big Tent National Elders Conference workshop that took place Aug. 3 at the Kentucky International Convention Center... Continue Reading

All of these considerations leave us with a rather counter-intuitive conclusion—at least from the perspective of modern critical scholarship—namely that John’s gospel actually contains clearer historiographical credentials than the Synoptics.  After all the hits that John’s gospel has taken over the years, this is remarkable fact. Over the years, biblical scholars have challenged the historicity... Continue Reading

The hardest part about fighting these temptations is that we often don’t feel like we want escape in the moment. Don’t be surprised. Remember. Fighting temptation means trusting promises over perceptions. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Follow the promises of truth, not the appetites of error.... Continue Reading

Short of Dr. Russell Moore, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, there are virtually no evangelical voices speaking to broader life issues beyond abortion in our “brave new world.” Christians of all denominations need to refine, articulate, and live out their beliefs about life, sexuality, and marriage. Abortion... Continue Reading

If you feel discouraged because your life doesn’t seem very epic for the Lord, maybe you need to redefine your understanding of “epic”. All service to Lord is epic. Serving your children can be epic. Cleaning the bathroom can be epic. Creating a spreadsheet can be epic. Every day of the Christian life is meant... Continue Reading

… Zealot is seriously flawed in many ways. There are many factual errors (some of which I will highlight below), but more importantly, Aslan’s approach matches the flawed approach of Jesus Seminar scholars, which is almost guaranteed to produce a skewed picture of Jesus. Zealot’s claim is essentially a conspiracy theory: Jesus was really a... Continue Reading

I have never been convinced by the Madonna-Paglia argument that pornography liberates and empowers women; but one does not have to agree with that argument to see that pornography has been normalized in society.  When one reflects on this, it is hardly surprising: the detachment of sexual gratification from committed, monogamous heterosexual relationships happened a... Continue Reading

Confessing faults we don’t really see, just to get people off our backs, is duplicitous. Confessing sins that aren’t really sins is the sign of a conscience gone awry. And confessing the mistakes and moral blindness of others usually amounts to tendentious manipulation. It may be from the best of intentions (or it may not),... Continue Reading

We cannot rejoice enough over what God has done for us. Let’s sing and preach about His wrath, warn the unrepentant what’s coming, and tell them that through Christ alone, as the hymn states, they can avoid it. That is the gospel   When I read that the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) decided to exclude from its hymnals the song “In... Continue Reading

If you haven’t stumbled across Simonetta Carr’s excellent set of “Christian Biographies for Young Readers,” you and your children are missing out. Each of the six titles in the series are beautifully illustrated, historically accurate, age-appropriate biographies for upper elementary-aged children. In the last couple years I have reviewed three of the titles and wanted... Continue Reading