Divorce Breeds Spiritual Disconnect
A recent study concludes children whose parents divorce when they are young are less likely to be religious later in life
…churches should work harder to address divorce and childbearing outside of wedlock. “Churches have not done enough to confront the impact of family breakdown on the spiritual lives of young people,” the researchers wrote. “We urge faith leaders to renew family ministries with an eye to all that we are learning about the religious lives... Continue Reading
Confession Prayer is Confessing Prayer
Does God forgive our sins if we confess them? The answer requires some explanation, and some back story.
The promise of forgiveness of sin when we confess belongs to those who belong to Christ. It is not a promise extended to those outside the household of faith. Only believers gain comfort and assurance from it. John extends it to “my little children,” those who have fellowship with the Father and with His Son,... Continue Reading
Feminist Says Baby Is “A Life Worth Sacrificing”
Her argument is simply that some people’s lives are more important than other people’s lives
All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is... Continue Reading
Economic Martyrdom and the Great Irony of Progressivism
If your religious beliefs happen to clash with the coercive methods and materialistic aims of this administration, blood shall be spilt on the altar of “access"
As we continue to see Christian business leaders refusing to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s Golden Image—choosing economic martyrdom over secularist conformity—the more this administration’s limited, debased, and deterministic view of man and society will reveal itself. Through it all, even as the furnace grows hotter and hotter, Christians should remember that a fourth man stands... Continue Reading
Are We Alone Together?
Has digital communication changed our human relationships?
Take my cell phone. I often instinctively carry it from room to room as I move around my house because it feels weird to be without it. Once (this was a really bad decision), because I had the phone with me, I took a call five minutes before my wife served an Asian dish she’d... Continue Reading
A Transcendentalist Moment
Thoughts on the inaugural invocation offered by Myrlie Evers-Williams
This is what Americans do when they invent religion. They do not turn outward to divine order but inward to individualistic realization. Cosmic Oversouls, self-help, and a progressive mythos can be found even today in scientology and The Secret. Most Americans are not militant secularists. Instead, they set themselves up as their own spiritual authorities... Continue Reading
Seminary, Time of Opportunity
Seminary days present unique opportunities that students and their families may never have again
While college can be a carefree season where students live it up, seminary can be a time to live it out. You should not think of seminary days as a vacation from sharing the truth you know and modeling behavior that befits followers of Christ. No Christians, including those with seminary training, get to do... Continue Reading
Retreat or Risk?
Jesus is worth risking everything for
As we stand at our Kadesh Barnea, we have a choice. We, too, can retreat into a wilderness of wasted opportunity. We can rest content in casual, convenient, cozy, comfortable Christian lives as we cling to the safety and security this world offers. We can coast through a cultural landscape marked by materialism, characterized by... Continue Reading
Carolyn Garris, PCA Pastor’s Wife, Dies from a Pulmonary Embolism
Carolyn was a member of the Presbyterian Church and a loving wife and mother
On Wednesday, January 23, 2013, Carolyn Garris, 39, died from a pulmonary embolism. She did have a stomach virus which led to her becoming dehydrated and was taken to the hospital where she died shortly afterwards. Carolyn’s husband, Jody Garris, had been called as Pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Conway, S.C., and was... Continue Reading
Should Christians Resist or Welcome Secularization?
What does it profit a society to gain anything from Christianity if its members lose their soul?
To put it simply, is God’s only concern with a society the extent to which it embraces the gospel of Jesus Christ (which can save anyone) or can a society genuinely please Him when it merely practices His moral law rather well (which doesn’t save anyone)? There is a strand of Christian social teaching that,... Continue Reading