Put simply, preachers need to make a distinction between mining and sifting.  Mining is the hardcore research that draws the raw material of a passage together. Sifting is the hard work of picking the jewels out of that material that are needed by your congregation. We do mining because we are textually-oriented. We do sifting because we are people-oriented.... Continue Reading

Historically we’ve been all too ready to grant the unbeliever’s self-assessment—as if it weren’t radically affected by sin—and then seek to stand on that self-assessment with him. This is foolish. His unbelief only has meaning in light of his knowledge of God and its suppression, so it’s incumbent on us to first of all recognize... Continue Reading

The very concept of chaplaincy is cloaked in the idea of religious belief and orthodoxy. It is difficult to even conceive of a function an atheist chaplain could provide that the Armed Forces’ secular services can’t provide. How many atheists really desire an irreligious thought leader to preside over their weddings? How many of them... Continue Reading

Montreat officials announced July 29 that they were pursuing a merger with Point University, a Christian Church (Stone-Campbell Movement) affiliated school in West Point, Ga. Montreat, which was founded nearly 100 years ago, would give up its name with the new entity being called Point University, officials said…The schools would maintain separate campuses, and “‘Montreat’... Continue Reading

According to relatives who moved thousands of miles away and are currently alienated from much of the family, Husmer has never once taken a major professional or financial risk, choosing instead to “coast through life” by putting considerable time and effort into his rewarding marriage, playing an active role in his two children’s lives, and... Continue Reading

The CWAGA folks have confused love with niceness. In this aspect, they have drunk the culture’s Kool-Aid that states that everyone’s opinion is okay, except for the person who denies that statement. That person is unloving (says the culture). And, of course, the CWAGA folks have also swallowed the idea that culture is almost always... Continue Reading

Everhard takes up the 1647 version of the Westminster Confession of Faith, a document of some weight and significance for Reformed Christians. His choice of this version of the Confession, over other ones, makes his book useful for the various flavors of Presbyterians in the United States and throughout the West. But the fact that... Continue Reading

The book describes a Europe under threat from terrorists, from anarchists, dynamiters and assassins. To meet the threat, London’s Metropolitan Police have formed an elite anti-anarchist squad, tasked to infiltrate the enemy. Following up a chance conversation, undercover detective Gabriel Syme attends a meeting of the General Council of the Anarchists of Europe, and is... Continue Reading

The surge of interest in liberal religion, many say, reflects the renewed vitality of religious history more generally, which has spread beyond its traditional redoubts in divinity schools to become one of the most popular specializations among academic historians, according to the American Historical Association. Some scholars say that frustration with the perceived cultural and... Continue Reading

Postmodernism states there is no objective truth, and to insist that there is (in this case, judicial law, juries, trial, evidence) is to impose violence. Postmodernism says that one’s experience and emotions are sufficient to weigh ‘reality’ whatever that is. So “in our hearts” is sufficient. Zimmerman is guilty because “we feel that he is.”... Continue Reading