Blog Archive
for February, 2006
God Is Still Speaking
— Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 —
A while back I posted here about Saint James United Church of Christ in Limerick, Pennsylvania, which had on its website the motto: “If you will but worship me, all will be yours” (Luke 4:7). You will note, of course, that these are the words of Satan during the wilderness temptations of Jesus.
Biloxi Blues
— Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 —
My wife shakes her head worriedly when she sees the wallpaper image I’ve set on my personal computer in my home study. It’s a photograph of what’s left of my hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi: taken of a stretch of the beach in the days following Hurricane Katrina. “That’s so depressing,” she says. “Why not a picture of Biloxi the way it used to be, in happier days?”
Keep Reading...Anti-Darwinists Are Often (Sit Down)…Christians
— Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 —
Did you see the article in today’s New York Times exposing how many of the nation’s leading Darwinists are atheists, agnostics, or members of left-leaning religious bodies? Did you notice how the Times pointed out that such irreligious worldviews draw suspicion to the scholarship of these thinkers?
Of course you didn’t. No such article appeared. But the Times did publish an article pointing out how many signers of a recent petition calling for debate over Darwinian naturalism are members of evangelical churches.
Keep Reading...Church Vandals at the Judgment Seat
— Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 —
The congregants of Saint Bellview Missionary Baptist Church, an African-American congregation, near Nashville opened their sanctuary doors this Sunday morning to see a vandalized building, with “KKK” and “Jesus is white” scrawled on the walls.
The Nashville Tennessean newspaper’s story on this event could have focused the story exclusively on the tragedy of racial polarization, or even on the need for law and order. Both aspects are true, and need to be said. What the story reveals, however, is a church that understands forgiveness.
Keep Reading...Hate Crimes in Alabama?
— Saturday, February 18th, 2006 —
Matthew Hall (he of the famous “man kills deer with bare hands” story of a while back) points out the relatively little attention the media have given to the Baptist church burnings in Alabama in recent weeks. Hall notes an exception: Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby.
Jacoby asks what would be the reaction nationally if ten gay bookstores had been firebombed in San Francisco or if ten mosques were burned down in Detroit.
Keep Reading...God and Man at Samford
— Saturday, February 18th, 2006 —
Driving through Alabama this past weekend, my research assistant Robbie Sagers and I stopped at the campus of Samford University, a Baptist-like school in Birmingham. I wanted to show Robbie the beautiful, elegant, and historic campus. On the way out, I stopped by the student center on the undergraduate side of the campus and picked up a copy of the student newspaper, the Samford Crimson.
The paper included an article by a Samford biology professor seeking to debunk the claims of Intelligent Design (ID).
Keep Reading...Yes Sir
— Friday, February 17th, 2006 —
When one of my sons responded recently to a grown woman with a “yeah,” he received discipline from his father. It was a lesson passed down through the generations, because I received the same discipline. One responded to a grown man with a “yes sir” and to a grown woman with a “yes ma’am.” Our pastor was “Brother Naron.” If we had called him by his first name, we would have walked a familiar path to the switch tree.
This may be chalked up to Southern culture, and indeed it is rooted in old patterns of Southern manners. But what if Southern sensibilities about terms of address were rooted in something older yet?
Keep Reading...Human Cloning and the Imago Dei
— Friday, February 17th, 2006 —
In 1973, evangelicals weren’t ready for Roe v. Wade. We had already given away too much, starting with a sharp distinction between the soul and the body. It was simple then for Southern Baptist leaders, for instance, to argue that personhood begins with the “breath of life” at birth. It took several years for evangelicals to follow the lead of Roman Catholics and denounce abortion as both a personal evil and social injustice.
I am afraid that unless Christian pulpits offer a comprehensively biblical vision of human life, we may be right back where we started. Abortion, after all, was easy for Christians to understand once they saw even the crudest sonograms, once they knew that abortion resulted in shredded limbs and spilled blood.
Now, however, the assaults on the vulnerable unborn and the dignity of life itself seem far more complex.
Keep Reading...Colson on Musical Mush
— Thursday, February 16th, 2006 —
Charles Colson’s Breakpoint commentary takes on an issue with which many of us struggle: the vapidity of much worship music. Colson writes:
Keep Reading...When church music directors lead the congregation in singing some praise music, I often listen stoically with teeth clenched. But one Sunday morning, I cracked. We had been led through endless repetitions of a meaningless ditty called, "Draw Me Close to You." The song has zero theological content and could be sung in a nightclub, for that matter. When I thought it was finally and mercifully over, the music leader beamed at us and said in a cheerful voice, "Let's sing that again, shall we?" "No!" I shouted loudly. Heads all around me spun while my wife cringed.
On Second Thought, Don’t Tell Me About Your Mother
— Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 —
The therapeutic establishment has changed its mind. Your psychotherapist doesn’t need to hear about your mother after all. Neither does the psychologist need to hear about your father’s temper or your disappointment with Christmas. It turns out, according to this morning’s New York Times, the vast majority of mental health professionals have concluded that “understanding the past is not required for healing.”
Keep Reading...
