An American charismatic church will become the next big thing/renewal/programme. The ‘globalisation’ and ‘McDonaldisation’ of the church, combined with the internet, poor theology, poor ecclesiology and the desperation to get some kind of quick fix make us very susceptible to the latest fad.  Will we never learn?   Last weeks Ten ‘Prophecies’ for Society/Culture in 2017 have... Continue Reading

The next time you hear someone refer to “the evangelicals,” a good first question to ask might be, “Which ones?”Here are four main tracks: The evangelicalism mainstream; premillennial populism; progressive-minded evangelicals who had organized the Evangelicals for Social Action; and black evangelicals who labored through their own ministries and institutions.   To generalize, the mainstream... Continue Reading

“Live close to God’s people, inviting those around you to intrude on your private world and to function as God’s tools of comfort, encouragement, confrontation, growth and change. Remember, sin makes it hard for us to see ourselves objectively and accurately. Personal spiritual insight and growth really is the result of community.”   I’m not... Continue Reading

Email has made it possible for just about anyone to access us at any time of the day (or night) with a request or a question that may take 15-30 minutes to answer. There have been times in my life when I could have filled most of my working day with answering such emails from people I’ve never known or met. I no longer feel obliged to do that. I used to feel guilty if I didn’t respond. No longer.

And let’s talk about the powerful using their position to bully others. We see that often. So much of sexual abuse is about power and abuse rather than lust. Which is why when powerful men use their power to humiliate or abuse they should be called out and not lauded by their peers.  I’m sure... Continue Reading

Because of their conservative outlook, the growing church clergy members in our study took Jesus’ command to “Go make disciples” literally. Thus, they all held the conviction it’s “very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians,” and thus likely put effort into converting non-Christians. Conversely, because of their liberal leanings, half the clergy members at... Continue Reading

. . . there are at least two reasons for a historian to use the term “pro-life.” First, this term, along with the phrase “right-to-life,” has been the term favored by almost all activists in the movement since the late 1960s. If we want to approach the study of the pro-life movement as historians, rather... Continue Reading

The Bible teaches that humans’ main problem is that they are separated from God because of sin. Yes, the Bible commands Christians to feed the hungry, but having a full belly doesn’t repair the broken relationship with God. The heretical social gospel is damning people to hell.   The Apostle Paul warned the young pastor Timothy that... Continue Reading

The real reason for concern is the fact that White’s brand of Christianity is a manifestation of the psyche of modern America in a religious idiom, and thoroughly continuous with the last eight years. As Horton points out, White’s Christianity is all about meeting needs, felt needs. It is a form of therapy—and rather materialist therapy—in skimpy religious garb. Where America was once pragmatic—and gloriously so, in that the “can-do” mentality of Americans was part of what made the country great—that pragmatism has become tied to psychological needs. Old-style pragmatism had a social purpose, in that it sought to work towards the common good. Now that the common good has been replaced with the well-being of the psychological self, that which works is that which makes me happy in the here and now.

Turns out that MMA has twice the rate of domestic violence of the larger population and three times the rate of the National Football League. So you have a culture that is sexualized around gender norms that is also excessively violent toward women. It only makes sense to me that the next iteration of fixation for male fans of the sport would be violence between women in the ring, which of course is still sexualized.