Hundreds of thousands of individuals struggling with drug and alcohol abuse, compulsive sexual behavior, compulsive gambling, and other serious problems, have benefited from Christian support groups, websites, articles, pamphlets, and books offering encouragement, exhortation, and advice. Many of these materials are written by recovering addicts themselves, who talk openly about their process of recovery. However, in... Continue Reading

The redemption of the felon on death row is between the felon and God. It’s up to God to have mercy on him/her; we on the other hand, have to do what’s right and necessary for the preservation of civil society by protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. Sparing the condemned doesn’t do that.... Continue Reading

As best I can tell, the concern of the ERLC statement is to protect religious institutions and low-income and minority groups. But that’s not the bill’s concern. The controversial provisions (now removed) sought to protect LGBT students. So that’s how its opponents should frame their argument. The problem with the bill isn’t just that it... Continue Reading

“So what do victim impact statements and the concept of hate crime have in common? They both point to an evaluation of the moral significance of criminal acts, and of victimhood, that prioritizes the psychological and the subjective.”   One of the great problems in today’s world is that hate is rather limited in scope.... Continue Reading

For Paul, gay and lesbian sexual acts are “contrary to nature” — literally “against nature.” At its heart, sex misuse is the toxic runoff of idolatry, but the manifest wrongness of the act is in leading its actors to use gender for anti-natural sex acts. Such abuse of creation is nothing short of rebellion against... Continue Reading

Today’s Essenes are the gnosis-exalting hip churches and the law-exalting fundy churches, each preaching legalism of a different sort and rendering different sorts of people untouchable. They advocate withdrawal from either “church people” or “the world,” as if true kingdom enlightenment exists in an ecclesiological utopia hermetically sealed off and protected by either their cultural... Continue Reading

“These days, as I get older and consider marriage and my future, it’s the God-designed preciousness of sex that I think about more often. Sex, I’ve learned from my parents, is something to be esteemed without being glorified. While portrayed as a cheap commodity in culture today, God created it as a valuable gift.”  ... Continue Reading

1. Take heed thou dost not make thy private particular enemies the object of thy imprecation. We have no warrant, when any wrong us, presently to go and call for fire from heaven upon them.
 Ames mentioned this but not with as much detail as Gurnall does here. One of the misunderstandings people have about... Continue Reading

Insomuch as we build on the foundation of Christ – following His ways, loving His truth, sharing His gospel – we build with heavenly materials. As the Spirit transforms our minds and awakens our hearts, we are being made into the image of Christ. We walk in His ways. We obey His commands. We speak... Continue Reading

…the historiographical truism about evangelical Protestantism was that they were not separatists. Fundamentalists were. And so, evangelicals were good (broad minded) and fundamentalists were bad (intolerant). The dividing line was particularly the question of whether conservative Protestants could cooperate with the mainline (read liberal) Protestant denominations.   ‘It’ in this case is separatism. Back in... Continue Reading