Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler predicts the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will split over the issue of homosexuality. Meanwhile, Kentucky Baptist Convention Executive Director Paul Chitwood announced incentives for employees to take early retirement or resign voluntarily as part of a “strategic realignment” of staff. All this raises an interesting question: Is it better to risk... Continue Reading

She has heard about species like me – “breeders” who stay home with small, unintelligent children all day – but she never expected to meet one in real life. I don’t need to feel as though I look like something the cat dragged home, even though I might. “Spiritual struggle” isn’t usually the first thing... Continue Reading

To many supporters — including me — the move from PCUSA to a new denomination called the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians is all about religion. It’s about biblical Scripture. Colorado Springs’ First Presbyterian Church, of which I am a member, is taking the first steps toward leaving the Presbyterian Church, USA — some would... Continue Reading

The many mirrors and white cinder block walls render the Presbyterian bathroom a purgatory of self-revelation. There I met a woman named Mrs. Butterfield who has a Ph.D. My eyebrows shot up, for in my red-doored church the phenomenon of a Ph.D., particularly a female one, might crack the stained glass. At home I attend... Continue Reading

Love the church that is actually “among you,” not the one you wish was there. God in his wisdom has not placed you there to be a busybody or malcontent That voice in your head that keeps rehearsing the disappointments and flaws of your church is not from the Lord. It is the accuser, helping... Continue Reading

Sanctified by Grace. The third step in our salvation is sanctification by the Spirit. Verse 13: “God chose you from the beginning to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit.” Remember, sanctification is the process of becoming more like Christ. It’s the day-by-day working out of what it means to be chosen and called by... Continue Reading

“Because if you take it literally then you have a Bible that contradicts itself. Because the order in which God makes things in Genesis 2 contradicts Genesis 1……But if you believe that the Bible is true then you have to believe that they’re two different literary genres. You have to.” — Tim Keller A couple... Continue Reading

I am sorry, but there is more to the Christian life that praying, reading the Bible, and contemplating death. I’m sorry, but it is simply inconceivable to think that someone would use their personal “free” time—likely dozens of hours per week for average people, probably more for young people, and definitely so for people who... Continue Reading

There is a sense in which the thoughtful conversion of learned and gracious men in the North American context is understandable: here their chosen churches represent a certain liturgical gravitas and intellectual sophistication, particularly when compared to the loud and in-your-face antics of the rising evangelical swaggerati. A year or so back I was berated... Continue Reading

Pain had struck my mother’s stomach like a dagger. We were on our tour bus high in the Italian Alps. She moaned in agony all the way down the long winding road to the bottom of the mountains….God was faithful to me, his frightened and unsure child, even when I couldn’t be faithful to Him.... Continue Reading