Everyone has an eschatology. The believer, the atheist, the agnostic, the Hindu—everyone has to give an account for how evil is going to be dealt with. The question isn’t whether people have an eschatology, but whether it is a compelling and coherent eschatology

Fathers were also more likely to encourage children’s risk taking—whether on the playground, in school work, or in trying new things. While mothers typically discouraged risk-taking, fathers guided their children in deciding how much risk to take and encouraged them in it.   Are mothers and fathers more or less the same? Do mothers “father”... Continue Reading

A conservative evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for the church’s “Fall Festival.” A confessional evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up as Zwingli and Bucer for “Reformation Day.”

I think Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) and similar efforts to make common cause with Roman Catholics are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of where the Roman Catholic Church is theologically and what it actually teaches.

Consider the opposite theological position which affirms that God elects people based on some kind of forseen faith. If God already knows who will be saved even before He creates them, then such a reality (their salvation) is fixed and cannot be otherwise. Thus God would be wasting His time to try to convert persons whom He knows will never come to faith.

The coming of Halloween is a good time for Christians to remember that evil spirits are real and that the Devil will seize every opportunity to trumpet his own celebrity. Perhaps the best response to the Devil at Halloween is that offered by Martin Luther, the great Reformer: “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him for he cannot bear scorn.”

Every catechism, by reason of human weakness and time and space and an editor’s whims, is limited. The NCC is no different, of course. But it’s helpful to consider its limitations in light of its objectives. Keller introduces the NCC as a catechism which maintains what he characterizes as the three historic aims of catechisms.

I think it is imprudent for a pastor to endorse either candidate for President of the United States, since neither is likely to uphold clear biblical teaching as the guide for his government. This does not mean, however, that there are no important differences between the candidates and the parties. There are, I believe, clear matters where policy commitments can be seen to be generally supportive of or hostile to a biblical worldview. In cases where a candidate’s stated policies are directly contrary to God’s Word, such evil plans should not be supported by Christian votes.

I pastor a church filled with people in the Intelligence Community. When it comes to what exactly they do, I don’t ask and they don’t tell. Why? Because then they’d have to kill me.

Imagine this: your father commits a heinous crime. As hard as it is to think about, you know the evidence is conclusive. He willfully and deliberately stalked a woman he did not know. He picked her at random, followed her, and then he brutally raped her. Or imagine something worse. He committed an even worse... Continue Reading