Monthly Archives: March 2023

The Charismatic Movement; a perfect storm of unsound teachings, abusive practices, and emotional roadshow gone amok.

The following piece was posted by Kenneth Tanner on his Facebook page a few days ago. I am reposting it here, with his permission. Having had some experience in the Charismatic Movement some decades ago (though not born into it as was Mr. Tanner), reading the following Facebook post really resonated with some of what I saw and experienced. "I was born into a family of multi-generational Southern Pentecostals and while it got wild now and then its embodied wisdom and beauty—present especially in its music, hospitality, elderly saints, and prayer—impresses itself on my heart more and more even decades down the road. At 12, I was drug from the joy, fervency, and occasional theatrics of my childhood religion—against my will, I…

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How Do You Have a Woman’s College If You Do Not Know What a Woman Is?

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The American academic landscape includes many different kinds of institutions. You've got vast private universities, you've got the big state funded universities, you have land grant universities, you have small colleges, community colleges, private colleges. You also have the so-called Seven Sisters. The Seven Sisters are a system of very elite women's colleges in the United States. It's actually a very interesting history, and what's going on right now means that all seven of the Seven Sisters are really at the center of a massive controversy. Because the Seven Sisters are very liberal sisters as you think about these liberal arts colleges, and they're doing their dead level best with very liberal faculty and probably even more exceedingly liberal students to keep…

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Hey Christians, get out and stay out!

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https://wng.org/opinions/hey-christians-get-out-and-stay-out-1678879969?fbclid=IwAR3RaFnw7IlZBM6bvTydVe15_kByg1vvOG8-6oQLLgChwukcusMGtU2ZTrQ An Arizona school district gives the boot to student teachers from a Christian college. Our society is growing increasingly secular and increasingly hostile to Christian conviction. Anyone who doubts that mounting hostility should look to Arizona, where one of the state’s largest public school districts has just voted to show student teachers from a Christian college the door. Now Arizona finds itself ground zero in a religious liberty dispute that could have nationwide implications. With equal urgency, this case reveals the contours of the challenge soon to be faced by every Christian college that dares to be Christian in any convictional sense. It all started with some routine paperwork, filed for the Washington Elementary School District’s Feb. 28 school board meeting.…

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Pay Attention!

Consider the Last Supper narrative. Here we have Jesus, among other things, telling his disciples that one of them will betray Him this very day. “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.” That statement alone would have been an attention getter. “The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss to know of which one He was speaking.” Ok, so they definitely were all ears now. They hear His declaration of the betrayal. It was clear that they were all paying attention to the subject at hand. They were no longer distracted by other conversations that were taking place at the table. “There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.  So, Simon Peter gestured to him, and said to him,…

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Love Your Neighbor Enough to Speak Truth

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A Response to Jen Hatmaker OCTOBER 31, 2016 | Rosaria Butterfield https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/love-your-neighbor-enough-to-speak-truth/ If this were 1999—the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved—instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker’s words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a balm of Gilead. How amazing it would have been to have someone as radiant, knowledgeable, humble, kind, and funny as Jen saying out loud what my heart was shouting: Yes, I can have Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline (queer theory and English literature and culture) and in my church. My emotional vertigo could find normal once again. Maybe I wouldn’t need to lose everything to have Jesus. Maybe the…

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Parenting; an intellectual desert (continued)

I grew up in an “independent / fundamental” Baptist Church. There was a huge list of “dos” and “don’ts” that was our primary understanding of life. Our world view was to grudgingly hold to this list for fear of offending God and being sent to hell. Of course, in our own delusion, we lived as if it wasn’t so much wrong to do these things as it was to get caught. The “don’ts” were basically: no dancing, no going to the movies, no smoking, no playing cards (except for the game, Rook. For some reason this card game escaped the condemnation of the “fundys”), certainly no sex before marriage, no gambling, no sports on Sunday, and probably a few more that I…

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Parenting; an intellectual desert.

What is the goal of parenting? I think to put it in a very condensed nutshell; it is to “train a child up in the way they should go.” Of course, that’s the easy part; defining the goal. Now, application, methodology, etc., this is what all the books have been written about. It seems to me that to some extent, most authors have approached the subject from an outcome based perspective rather than what I would consider a more biblical, obedience based approach. What do I mean by this distinction? An outcome-based perspective would simply be to find what works and go with it. However, the Scripture spells out very clearly that we are to live in obedience, and while our obedience…

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Christ and the Conflagration of Canaan

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http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christ-and-the-conflagration-of-canaan#When:05:01:00Z MARCH 24, 2015 A New York Times article recently described the Islamic State’s persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria as “a slow-motion genocide.” Atrocities such as beheadings, burnings, crucifixions, and mass burials (sometime of live victims) defy human comprehension. Islamic mujihedeen (holy warriors) smile at the camera, waving flags and holding up AK-47s, proud of their brutal accomplishments. One does not have to be a Christian to be sickened by such horrors. In this cultural moment, with daily reports of genocide throughout the world, the question of Canaan’s destruction under the ministry of Joshua occasionally enters the conversation: “How could the God of Scripture command the violent slaughter of an entire society?” In other words, doesn’t the Old Testament practice…

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How the Evangelical Mind Was Born

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  JUNE 10, 2020  | RUSSELL PULLIAM https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/think-christianly/ © Historian Mark Noll once famously worried about the scandal of the evangelical mind, contending that Christians had turned their backs on the academic world. Decades before Noll’s concern, a small group of leaders were laying the groundwork for developing the Christian mind in the church’s pews. The quest accelerated after World War II, thanks to writers and thinkers such as C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Carl Henry. Blending theology, philosophy, and other academic tools for popular evangelical audiences, they wanted Christians to use their minds, as well as their hearts, in the full service of Christ. To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement CHARLES COTHERMAN In this compelling…

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The Danger of Emphasizing the “Exciting” Testimony

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 FEBRUARY 1, 2021 BY GRAYSON GILBERT https://www.patheos.com/blogs/chorusinthechaos/the-danger-of-emphasizing-the-exciting-testimony/?fbclid=IwAR2mxofbgkePNKpBdNTcTuVwdeRRUuqorIa7aGWcVGTotqkTgroNdIpOLZc On August 28, 2008, the Lord put to death a man who was an atheistic, drug-addled dealer, womanizer, drunkard, liar, thief, idolater, and suffice it to say: the fool of fools; the laziest of sluggards; the chief of sinners. I have the “exciting” testimony that many within the church are eager to lift up as an example of God’s grace and faithfulness. I came to Christ in a rather uproarious manner. Not only was I arrogant enough to think out of thousands of years and millions of people that I’d be the one who could sufficiently dismantle the historic faith, I had a life that boasted of doing things my way. I did what was right…

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