When I was younger, I remember listening in amazed delight at the stories of my absent minded grandfather. My grandmother seemed to take it all in stride, and often laughed about the turn that life could take with an absent minded husband. Other pastor’s wives had similar stories, and as kids we called absent mindedness... Continue Reading

Those who are the most well known and have the biggest blogs gain the most market share and actually become the doctrinal arbiters of our electronic age. In this new media world, the idea that the church as a corporate body actually has authority to declare doctrine and judge on doctrinal issues is anathema.

Always ask “Should we?” before you ask “Can we?” Always ask “Will this please God?” before you ask “Will this please our people?” Always ask “Will this meet a need?” before you ask “Will this meet a demand?”

For Bass “religionless Christianity” is the elimination of creeds and dogmas, of authority structures and inhibiting moral codes, of a propositional, inerrant Bible. She hails a movement borne along on the breath of an undefined “Spirit” into an age of pure inner experience. This Awakening has nothing to do with historic Christianity. Bass notes that... Continue Reading

We evangelicals are currently going through the process of demonization, the fact that evangelicals as a group are the most charitable people on earth, or that they have created the freest and most tolerant societies is being conveniently forgotten, and the myth of the ignorant, ranting, gay basher is being spread far and wide. The... Continue Reading

Let’s not be weenies with our words here. Not believing in 6/24 creation might not mean you’re a heretic going to hell, but believing you’re a born-again, Holy-Spirit baptized, justified-adopted-sanctified, persevering-to-glory child of God who rejoices in the freedom of his sexual fornication IS a damning conviction

For those of you who don’t know, every year, presbyteries, sessions, and even individual church members can take the opportunity to send requests — called “overtures” — to the General Assembly. Before those requests make it to the floor for the consideration of the full Assembly, they are first referred to a committee, where they’re debated and voted upon at that level.

We shouldn’t evaluate Christian sexual ethics on the basis of how much they may or may not “alienate” people. We have to base our beliefs on what scripture teaches, not on what we think people may be offended by. There will always be people who hate the light and who won't come to it. We do not turn off the light so that those folks can have room to stretch out.

It is also of interest to note that Smith’s own Confession, the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), uses the term “sacrament” in chapters XIV and XXVII-XXIX in various places. It also uses the word “ordinance” to refer to baptism (XXVIII.5-6) and the Lord’s Supper (XXIX.3). Which is it – sacrament or ordinance? It’s both; they were interchangeable terms back them.

In endorsing Noll's book, I said that the Reformation is over only to the extent that it has succeeded. And it has succeeded in bringing change to both sides of that 16th-century divide. Back in the 16th century, the two sides shared in common the written Word of God. They had different interpretive patterns. We shouldn't minimize that. But in that pre-critical world, what they shared, often as unspoken assumptions, was far greater than the issues that divided them