These are just a few examples to make the point: our society does have a morality, we do care about right and wrong – but we simply take our definitions of right and wrong from what is most immediate and concerning to us. It’s our new Reactionary Morality. Because we have, by and large, abandoned... Continue Reading

The book is partly a critique of unbiblical versions of happiness; but it’s mainly a positive presentation of the Christian life in an increasingly negative culture. I identify the causes and consequences of this widespread and demoralizing plague of negativity, and I propose ten biblical and practical methods to re-balance our attitude, outlook, words, and... Continue Reading

Not Just a Soup Kitchen is for churches that are desperately seeking answers on how to do diaconal ministry effectively. It is also for anyone who works with people ordinarily stigmatized and not welcomed in churches. The book deals with the fears many have of coming alongside those in need, and chronicles stories about homeless... Continue Reading

When asked about potential “restoration” of the pastor and church, Setzler responded, “It is our hope that under the pastor’s leadership, the church would be led back to compatibility with the articles of faith we follow as a convention. Should the pastor and congregation arrive at that conviction and reverse their current stance on homosexual... Continue Reading

I call on churches and Christian institutions to stop thinking their organizational mission are actually missional.  If you simply maintain what you have, seek to insure its programs and property, and don’t realize a sense of dramatic urgency to our present cultural crisis then you will be swallowed up.  We must march, we must preach,... Continue Reading

While false guilt is to be abhorred, guilt itself in the life of a Christian is not necessarily a false guilt nor should it be avoided. On the contrary, true guilt should be welcomed as a Gospel blessing as the Lord uses it to bring us to Christ, remind us of the joy of our... Continue Reading

“Student life in its many dimensions includes the necessity of wide-ranging speech and inquiry and that student expression is an integral part of the University’s educational mission.” The “all comers” logic tramples on these principles. It ignores a commonsense recognition that the university ought to be about inquiry, not orthodoxy. That is a loss for... Continue Reading

Legalists add personal obedience as a requirement for justification, and antinomians reject obedience as a necessary consequence and requirement of justification. Or in other words, legalistic “Law-People” mix the theological concepts of justification and sanctification, while antinomian “Grace-People” divorce them. But how can one avoid the errors of legalism and antiomianism, and still cherish Law and Grace? How can one be... Continue Reading

The decision to leave the Church necessarily entails leaving a particular congregation, which could include leaving long-term relationships. Additionally, if the Christian Right were the cause of a decline in church membership, it would not explain the decline of Mainline Protestant churches, which have little connection to the Christian Right.   WASHINGTON — Contrary to... Continue Reading

The authenticity of young people’s protest against their elders is demonstrated by their willingness to maintain solidarity with the guilt of the church-community and to bear that burden in love, abiding in penitence before God’s word. There is no real “church association”; there is only the church.   Editor’s note: The following is a summary... Continue Reading