“I and others have emphasized the contrast between Ben Franklin’s self-professed Deism and his longtime friendship with the Calvinist evangelist George Whitefield, but Lepore convinced me that his sister’s influence likely had an even stronger tethering effect connecting Ben to the faith of his childhood.”   In my Baylor graduate seminar on the American Revolution,... Continue Reading

While I applaud many of Tripp’s helpful tips on Christian parenting, I think it is unhelpful and unbiblical to view our children as “lost.” Are they sinners who need Jesus like I do? Yes, for sure! But a healthy biblical and covenantal perspective won’t let us call our kids “lost;” we’re not missionaries to our kids. Like the Heidelberg Catechism (Q/A 74) says, “Infants, as well as adults are in God’s covenant and are his people. They, no less than adults, are promised the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit who produces faith.” Our job is to teach them what it means to be a child of God: to repent, believe, and follow the Lord!

Mr. Bock, who is Presbyterian, is credited with being the first Hollywood marketer to realize that churches had started to install enormous screens to use during their services, sometimes just to display hymn lyrics. More recently, $35,000 video walls have become more common in sanctuaries. “It makes church feel more contemporary,” Mr. Bock said, adding... Continue Reading

If Evangelicalism is to have a future connected to historic Christianity…It will need to break the nexus of non-ecclesiastical and unaccountable platform, power, and money which currently appears to determine the boundaries of orthodoxy; it will need to recognize that errors on the doctrine of God have historically proved just as lethal to orthodoxy as those on scripture … it will need to set its biblical theology in positive relation to systematic theology and the creedal and confessional heritage of the church; and it will need to think long and hard about how orthodoxy is transmitted from generation to generation.

“I often recommend books both publicly and in private conversations. When someone takes my recommendation I try to follow up in a few weeks to ask what they think of the book, what they are learning or if the book has raised any questions for them. That has led to some very fruitful conversations and... Continue Reading

For this reason the Westminster Confession notes that outside of the church “there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (25.2). This doesn’t mean that a Christian who cannot possibly join with the fellowship is lost (for example, there are Christians in some prisons who have no way of being part of the church or fellowship). But it does mean that those who willfully refuse to be part of a church are putting their souls in grave danger. Why? Because neglecting the assembly is a multi-layered sin against God, others, and self.

“We cannot think of Christ properly apart from the church. All the offices he exercises as head over all things, he exercises on behalf of the church. If we think of the church apart from Christ, or transfer to the church prerogatives that belong only to Christ, then we are guilty of idolatry. But if we think of Christ apart from the church, then we are guilty of a dismemberment that severs what God has joined together. We are divorcing Christ from his only bride."

“I was super excited when I found this in my husband’s stack of books. I like it because I am in a busy season as a mother of six, who homeschools, and have the joy of my sister and her family moving in with us during a tough season for them. The book keeps you... Continue Reading

“Yes, I say, thank God for the Christmas season; thank God for the softening it brings to stony hearts; thank God for the recognition that it brings for the little children whom Jesus took into His arms; thank God even for the strange, sweet sadness that it brings to us together with its joys, as we think of the loved ones who are gone. Yes, it is well that we should celebrate the Christmas season, and may God ever give us a childlike heart that we may celebrate it aright”

When it comes to violations of conscience, however, our hypersexualized culture is not so quick to respond. We’ve become acclimated to sex as an entertainment tool, not realizing that mainstream actors are routinely coerced and manipulated into performing sex and/or nude scenes. In the face of overwhelming societal pressure, they often submit to things they otherwise wouldn’t do.