What to Do When Your Child Is Nothing Like You
The gospel answer to the challenges posed by family differences.
It’s impossible for a person to completely abandon her original culture in order to enter a new one. (Nor is it theologically consistent with the work of Christ, who didn’t abandon his deity in order to become man.) As much as parents would like to identify with our children, we can’t change everything about who... Continue Reading
Would the ‘true church’ please stand up?
Is the PCUSA a representation of the true church?
The Book of Order makes use in some references to the true Church and in other cases to the true church. The problem is that people don’t “hear” the lower case or capital letter. When a presbytery recognizes one part of a congregation as the true church it denigrates the people of faith whom it... Continue Reading
Hope for Prodigal Children
Parents must not give in to the temptation to presume their prodigal children are bound for glory
If parents, who are primarily responsible for training up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, choose not to admonish for fear of driving their faithless children farther away from home, their fear might ultimately reveal their own faithlessness as well As a pastor, I am often faced with the difficulty... Continue Reading
Showing some love for the Anglicans
We who are outside of the CofE need to be very careful in our criticisms
“So for the glory of God and of England, pray for us Anglicans, as we do for our brothers and sisters working hard for our Lord Jesus in Baptist, Presbyterian, and other churches across the land. The gospel which unites us is stronger than our historic differences; so let’s not jeopardise one by focusing solely... Continue Reading
Why C.S. Lewis Was Wrong on Marriage (and J.R.R. Tolkien Was Right)
Lewis surrendered his central conviction when he argued for "two distinct kinds of marriage."
Now younger evangelicals are reacting against that and are attempting to develop a robustly Christian social ethic that holds all of creation accountable to the claims of Christ. It’s an undeniably positive and most welcome development. However, it is important to understand that evangelical commitments to both the pro-life cause and the preservation of traditional... Continue Reading
Christmas Carols: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
A hymn celebrating the hope of Messiah’s advent
The hymn is based on a prophecy in Isaiah 7, a prophecy that looks forward to the birth of a child who will be named Immanuel, which means “God with us.” In Eden, God had been present with mankind, but as a result of the Fall, man was exiled from God’s presence. From that point... Continue Reading
The Bible’s High Calling to Conform to God’s Moral Character
What about making a priority of giving God pleasure in the way we handle our sexuality?
We may feel that because our technology is superior to that of previous generations, so our morality must have evolved to be superior too. We or our friends may want to embrace some of the acts these authors claim God forbids. In our hearts, we are convinced our sexuality is ours alone. Asking some of... Continue Reading
Humanism for Children
A new humanist Web site is designed to furnish children with a naturalistic or atheistic perspective on science, sexuality, and other topics
The new humanist Web site never encourages kids to think critically about the tough questions concerning the justification of humanism itself. Humanists tend to be condescendingly dismissive of theism and oblivious to nihilism. Meanwhile, they blithely extol the virtues of critical thinking, curiosity, and science, apparently unaware of the incoherence at the heart of their... Continue Reading
On Keeping Christmas
Christmas: Is it a day to be ecclesiastically set apart as a ‘holy’ day?
The birth of Jesus was solemnized by armies of angels; they had their music and their songs on this occasion. But how different from those generally used among mortals! “Glory to God in the highest, on earth, peace, good will to men!” This was their song. But is the music and dancing, the feasting and... Continue Reading
The Black Sea Flood: Definitely Not the Flood of Noah
Lately it seems the scientific world has developed a passionate interest in Noah’s Flood
Their claim to have found Noah’s Flood is wrong—nothing but wild, unsubstantiated speculation. Not one of the characteristics of the Black Sea flood match the tell-tale signature of the Flood described in the Bible. And their assertion that the biblical record is just a corrupted version of flood legends derived from their Black Sea flood... Continue Reading