Gospel Living

The other day, Ian Murray presented the stirring account of Archibald Brown, close friend of Charles Spurgeon. If you like Christian biographies (tales of God's work in the saints before us) listen to it .

If you haven't done so yet, check out the current ejournal from 9Marks. January/February 2010, Volume 7, Issue 1   Also, it's available in good 'ol fashioned HTML, pasted below.  (See source page for editor's note, upcoming events, and other important 9Marks material.) THE MINDSET OF THE NEW EVANGELICAL LIBERALISM How to Become a Liberal Without Attending Harvard Divinity School What kind of pastor is susceptible to liberalism? One who loves self, and even the sheep, more than he loves the Good Shepherd.  By Michael Lawrence The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind Why do evangelical academics so crave worldly acceptance? By Carl Trueman Air Conditioning Hell: How Liberalism Happens Liberalism happens when we try to save Christianity from itself. By R. Albert Mohler, Jr. The Neo-Liberal Stealth Offensive   The gospel's most dangerous adversaries are not raving atheists. They are church leaders with gentle, friendly, pious demeanors. By Phil John...

It is the New Year, and the topic on many minds is that of resolutions.  Weigh-loss, exercise, and quiting cold-turkey. Perhaps you've already broken yours. Why can't we seem to keep resolutions?  How do we choose good resolutions?  What is even the point of resolutions? This post won't answer all of those questions.  But let's choose a starting point for the discussion. I was asked two Sundays ago to give a biography on Jonathan Edwards.  Among many other things, he is famous for writing some very stirring resolutions, and overall, his life certainly matched his resolve.  I'm not expert on the life of Edwards, nor am I accustomed to teaching biographical surveys, so it was an interesting challenge. Nonetheless, I find Edwards to be a very interesting brother from generations past: inspirational in spots, convicting in others, and yes, questionable in still others. John Edwards?  Isn't he that nasty Puritan?  Here are my notes fro...

I've been sitting on this for quite a while now because, well, I got busy.  Sorry!  But it's really interesting, really . One of the sites I have linked on the right side of this blog is the Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes theories in Intelligent Design ("ID").  Since ID has strong Christian and hence, special creationist connections (read, "believers in the six-day creation of Genesis 1"), it is often attacked as a sneaky group of Christians trying to get the Bible into the schools.  This is hardly the case since 1) to my knowledge, not all ID proponents are Christians, 2) ID certainly does not promote special creationism or any specific deity as the "designer," and 3) the only thing ID proponents want taught in schools is that Darwinism is not settled and remains an open question. It is along that third point that the Discovery Institute has hosted a petition of sorts called " A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism ...

From the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program : ________________________________________________________________________ MP3 Available Here   Dr. Anthony Bradley , visiting professor of theology at The King’s College in New York City and a research fellow at the Acton Institute, will address the theme of his latest, controversial book: " Liberating Black Theology: The Bible & the Black Experience in America ". Here's what some are saying about Dr. Bradley's new book: “Anthony Bradley’s analysis of black liberation theology is by far the best thing that I have read on the subject. Anthony’s book is comprehensive, and in depth. He covers all of the bases, and thereby provides the reader with all of the information that he needs to understand the critical issues involved with black liberation theology. By covering such figures as James Cone, Cornell West and Jeremiah Wright we see all of the nuances involved with their approaches to the subject. His explanation...

(Continued from last week.) B. F. Skinner By way of contrast to Jung, Skinner was a naturalist of naturalists, granting no mystical overtones.  As a result, “ He rejected that a person has meaning or significance ” (36).  His naturalism also left him a determinist, rejecting “free will” and instead teaching that genetic codes direct actions.  For instance, if a man has a disposition toward religion, it is only because his DNA is encoded with a need to seek something spiritual (apply as you will now to the thief, a pedophile, a homosexual, etc.).   Thus, these views flow from his naturalism: there is nothing spiritual or supernatural here, and a man is as bound to his base desires as is an animal. How, then, does Skinner propose to correct societal ills?  Quite simply the same way we would train an animal:  “ behavior modification .”  Ganz describes this as “ attempting to control a person’s destiny by controlling his or her behavior ” (37)—for in...

This concise explanation from Defcon : And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an ANGEL OF LIGHT. Holy Bible / 2 Corinthians 11:14 T here have also been ministering angels in the Church which were of Satan appearing as an ANGEL OF LIGHT. Joseph Smith / Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith / Page 214 / 1842 T he angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil…that being who beguiled our first parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an ANGEL OF LIGHT. Book of Mormon / 2 Nephi 9:8-9 W e learn from the revealed word that Satan was once an ANGEL OF LIGHT, then known as Lucifer, a Son of the morning. James E. Talmage / Articles of Faith / Page 56 / 1988 S atan wants us to believe in his false prophets, false healers, and false miracle workers. They may appear to be so real to us that the only way to know is to ask God for the gift of discernment. The devil himself can appear as an ANGEL OF LIGHT. ...

As sung by "Barack Obama."  That Paul Shanklin, gotta love 'im.

HT to the Irish Calvinist for this insightful quote: Until you are convinced that you can’t change your child’s heart, you will not take prayer seriously. –Paul Miller  A Praying Life , p. 167 

Yes, I'm a couple of days late for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but this post is worth sharing.   Defcon reminds us of just how racist the Mormon religion has been . (HT: Slimjim )

t’s tempting to gain a helping hand from the learned men and women in the fields of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, etc. in order to minister to the hurting and poor in spirit.  And why not?  There are a lot of unique problems out there, so it seems to make sense to send sorrowful and troubled souls to the "trained professionals."  Yet, we must wonder if we are feeding our sheep to the wolves.  To answer this, it is first necessary to examine the foundations of modern method. To do that, I recommend you read Richard Ganz’s PsychoBabble: The Failure if Modern Psychology and the Biblical Alternative.   He explores each individual responsible for modern psychology giving the reader a basic understanding of what these men actually believed.  By learning their frameworks and what drove them as people is fundamental to the debate within Christianity over whether we should use  psychology as a complement to the Bible.  The conclusion of the text ...

First, the warnings. If you haven't heard, scammers are already out and about and ready to take advantage of your generosity. CNN.com gives the following advice in choosing in whom to place your credit card trust: Be skeptical of folks claiming to be quake victims or survivors Do not click on any unsolicited email links or attachments, unless they are from Pisteuo . Be skeptical of charities: request information in writing and check to see if they are registered at Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance , or Charity Navigator.org . In other words, don't trust a nice-sounding name like "Relief Fund for Haiti, Really , So Please Give Me Your Bank Account Number." Ask the percent-per-dollar going to Haiti, and how you may designate funds. Never give cash. The guy on the street corner with a bucket is probably not from the UN. Don't give credit cards to telemarketers or to un-secure websites (look for the "http s ://" in the address when you ...

From some good humor folks .

From the past Bible-Science Association meeting: _______________________________________________________ The statements about weather in the Bible are numerous, telling, but often overlooked.  The Bible not only detailed the Hydrological Cycle centuries  before the scientific community, but also details specific information about weather and weather related phenomena that even today still puzzles the meteorological and climate forecast community.  This lecture will look at some issues related to Biblical interpretation as it relates to weather, the weather as a demonstration of the power of God, and an overview of the current hysteria over "Global Warming" and something called the "Evangelical Climate Initiative." Our speaker, Dennis Swanson - M.Div The Master's Seminary, D.Min Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, entered the ministry after serving almost 15 years at LAPD.  He has contributed over the years to the religion section a major newspaper as wel...

One of the classes I begin today is called "The History of the English Bible," which should be a nice little study this will likely spin off a few posts here. Like this one. Iron Sharpens Iron, an excellent Christian radio call-in program based in New York, recently featured Dr. Benjamin Shaw talking about the history of the English translation .  Enjoy and expand yourself.  That's what I'll be doing while you read this...

That is the only conclusion I can come up with. Google's suggestion popups are a helpful time-saver in the search process -- begin to type a phrase and a number of completed, common searches or high-ranking page visits allow the user to navigate quickly toward his inquiry destination. Except when it doesn't work.  As you type the word "Isalm" into Google search, you''ll note that a number of suggestions begin to appear.  Add to the search phrase the verb "is" and suddenly the suggestions evaporate. However, type in "Christianity is," "Judaism is," etc., and the suggestions (many of which are inflammatory) abound.  See the image below from the original  Fox News  story: FoxNews Google claims that this is a bug.  However, the search "Islam is" works fine (with the top-ranking results being a smörgåsbord of blogs more up-to-date than this one).  What are some of the other results?  "Islam is stupid;" ...

This neat little post is from Wiser Time (HT: Defending. Contending. ).  I totally agree, and continuously feel the need to shake my head in shame at the drivers that sport such nonsense. You’ve seen these, right? They make me mad. Why? Because they don’t really mean what they say. Let’s break it down. We’ll call each worldview by the letter it’s supposed to represent. So: C = Islam O = Pacifism E = “Gender equality” (=the LGBT agenda)  X = Judaism I = Wicca / Pagan / Bah’ai S =Taoism / Confucianism T = Christianity And let’s assume a very broad definition of “coexist”: living together without calling for the destruction of each other. Here are the problems with that: C wants to kill E, X, T, and (by implication) O. If they achieved the world they wanted, I and S would also no longer exist. O doesn’t allow for effective resistance or defeat of C. E stands in direct opposition to C, X, and T, and accuses those who speak against them o...