Change Wisely, Dude
A young writer has some advice for church leaders trying desperately to attract and retain young people: change carefully and wisely. What young people say they want in their 20s is not necessarily what they want 10 years later.
When I slipped back in, I wanted what my own parents had wanted in their hippie youth back in the 1970s: an anti-institutional church that looked less like a church and more like a coffee house. But after two years at Praxis, the coffee tasted thin. I felt homeless in heart. I missed intergenerational community.... Continue Reading
The Slippery Slope to Polygamy and Incest
Opponents of same-sex marriage have long argued that allowing such unions will lead to marriages among more than two people and between adults who are related. They're right.
In private conversations with leaders in the marriage movement, I often hear two responses. The first is that there is no political energy behind a fight for incestuous or polygamous marriages. The second is that they would be fine if those restrictions fell as well but, in effect, “don’t quote me on that.” The first... Continue Reading
Who Ruined the Humanities?
Of course it's important to read the great poets and novelists. But not in a university classroom, where literature has been turned into a bland, soulless competition for grades and status.
So you see, I am not making a brief against reading the classics of Western literature. Far from it. I am against taking these startling epiphanies of the irrational, unspoken, unthought-of side of human life into the college classroom and turning them into the bland exercises in competition, hierarchy and information-accumulation that are these works’... Continue Reading
One Fan’s Perseverance Helped Mississippi State to Overcome Obstacles
The three seconds that changed the lives and future for many people
The 59-year-old man in a wheelchair told the Bulldogs of his successes that came after many doubted his capabilities. Some even doubted his life. In 2010, doctors twice advised Amy to plan funeral arrangements when rectal cancer whittled Doc’s body down to 60 pounds. “But God said, ‘I ain’t ready for you! Go back!’” Doc... Continue Reading
A Woman and Her Bible: Part Deux or Part Trois?
There She Goes Again: Andree and Me
This approach does not rule out a cautious and conservative exemplary use of Old Testament biography. … But it does keep us from getting distracted away from God’s purpose in history and most importantly from Christ who is the focus of it all. It helps to guard us from speculative use of the Old Testament... Continue Reading
Sinclair Ferguson to Join St Peter’s Free Church in Dundee
The congregation heard the news of Sinclair Ferguson’s call on Sunday June 16
Dr. Ferguson will be introduced to the congregation on Sunday 25 August and will preach at that morning service. He was previously minister at St George’s Tron Church, Glasgow, and also associate editor for the Banner of Truth Trust. Ferguson is soon to retire as senior minister of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina,... Continue Reading
What If Our Grandmothers Were Actually Right? Justice and Children
The abandonment of older assumptions about the family, it turns out, has a tremendous social cost after all
When, we might ask, will we stop obsessing about what marriage means for us adults – about what we can get out of it or why we should be allowed to get out of it – and start coming to grips with what marriage as an institution – and our marriages in particular – mean... Continue Reading
A “Supremely” Assured Devolution and Destruction of Marriage and Culture
Consequences of the Supreme Court's ruling on DOMA
Christ warned us that men and women, unrestrained by God’s grace, will call good, evil and evil, good. But in reality, while we may call what is immoral, legal, we cannot make moral what God has declared immoral. Finally remember that, in a sense, the SCOTUS decision has not changed a thing. The issues are... Continue Reading
Some Different Advice to Those Raising African-American Boys in the Wake of the Martin Shooting and Zimmerman Trial
A response to Toure's article "How to Talk to Young Black Boys about Trayvon Martin"
In one sense, all Toure advocates here is wisdom, the kind of savvy with people and in situations that could de-escalate very volatile circumstances. We want our boys to be peace-loving and to survive to fight on their own terms. I commend all of this. But at other places Toure reveals a view of life... Continue Reading
Digital Indulgences
Rome is now offering plenary indulgences to Romanists who follow Pope Francis’ tweets from Catholic Youth Day in Rio beginning July 22.
According to Rome, grace is works and works are grace. Rome, the NPP, and the FV teach that “the works of the law” refers to keeping the Mosaic laws. Nonsense. Paul makes it clear in Rom 11:6 that regarding acceptance with God grace and works are competing principles. When Paul says “works of the law”... Continue Reading