For decades, the dominant religious narrative has focused on the decline of liberal Protestant Christianity. The new PRRI/Brookings analysis suggests a distinctly different future pattern, at least as far as one can be read the future from the tea leaves of the present: the declining appeal of religious conservatism, coupled with the increasing appeal of... Continue Reading

That is the great purpose behind why we are called jars of clay. It is to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us (2 Corinthians 4:7). We are weak, we are frail, we are lame – and yet, we are chosen. We are loved. “God chose what is low and despised... Continue Reading

William M. Schweitzer convincingly criticizes Keller’s use of C. S. Lewis’s depiction of hell as a place chosen by people who want to be away from God’s presence. Keller says, “No one ever asks to leave hell,” and Schweitzer is right to bring Matthew 7:21–22 to the forefront (74). He also uses Revelation 14:9–11 persuasively:... Continue Reading

Whereas, the BSA has now in principle and practice placed homosexuality, bisexuality and transgender-ism as normative by requiring those affirming such “orientations” and behavioral “preference” as qualified for membership within the BSA thereby creating conflict for the ministry of Briarwood Presbyterian Church   Briarwood Presbyterian Church has been placed in an unsought position of responding... Continue Reading

I’m at a much more complex stage of parenting. The girls are now growing out of the innocent-keep-them-in-a-glorious-bubble stage. They are learning about life. While many new circumstances are great opportunities for Matt and I to have a “teaching moment” and see how the gospel can be applied, it’s also painful to see our kids... Continue Reading

But is it wrong to wish that Christians, who have discovered the value of wholesome food and the farming practices that produce it, would translate their choices about diet and carbon footprints into congregations and pastors more circumspect about cities and more respectful of the fly-over sectors of the greatest nation on God’s green earth?... Continue Reading

We are a fallen race. That means that we—as well as our children—are born with deep-seated antipathy toward what God made us to be. There is a brokenness in our bones that groans to be healed. As the Psalmist has it, we have all been brought forth in iniquity and conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5).... Continue Reading

A Demanding Schedule: Cara has found that full-time pastoral ministry isn’t all that different from life as a doctor. “My family doctor and I have often commiserated together when we discussed the similarities between our lives and the chaotic family schedules we manage,” Cara confesses. (79) We know this and they know this: Pastor’s don’t... Continue Reading

Aldrin wanted to give people on Earth something to think about. He was planning to broadcast his Lord’s Supper, but skittish NASA worried that atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair would sue it for hurting not only the legendary separation of church and state but the definitely real separation of Earth and moon.   Pardon me,... Continue Reading

Keller adopts a twofold answer to many questions. He wants to present doctrine to the “moderns” (usually older, more rural and less educated) one way, and to the “postmoderns” (usually younger, more urban and educated) in a different way. Keller’s presentations to the moderns is essentially old-fashioned orthodoxy, whereas his answer to the postmoderns include... Continue Reading