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(From a survey conducted by the Barna Research Group, and article written by Tim Ellsworth in 2002. If you understand the implications of the survey, you can understand how US Christianity has spiraled down to where it is today.) Only 41 percent of adults in Americas twelve largest denominations could be classified as "born again," according to a recent study released by the Barna Research Group. As reported by the Florida Baptist Witness, the study’s findings identify an alarmingly high number of church members whose beliefs fall far short of orthodox Christianity. For example, only 41 percent of all adults surveyed believed in the total accuracy of the Bible. Catholics had the lowest percentage (23 percent) who believed the Bible to be…

by Cameron Hilditch https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/the-christian-invention-of-the-human-person/ We shouldn't forget where the idea that we are all equal, unique personalities, each possessed of unfathomable dignity and inviolable rights, came from. The most important lesson that the study of history teaches us is contingency. Things did not have to turn out the way they did. Take, for instance, the answer that our civilization has historically given to the most important question of all: “What does it mean to be a human being?” Ever since the Enlightenment, many people in the West have had the impression that answering this question is easy, that it’s just a matter of observing human behavior empirically across time and space and then abstracting a few universal maxims from the data. This is…

OCTOBER 28, 2019  |  Gavin Ortlund https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/evangelicals-theological-retrieval/ This article is adapted from Gavin Ortlund’s new book, Theological Retrieval For Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future (Crossway). When “Bible answer man” Hank Hanegraaff converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2017, Rod Dreher (an Orthodox believer himself) invited others evangelicals to follow his lead: Many evangelicals seek the early church; well here it is, in Orthodoxy. I am sure some will be scandalized by Hanegraaff’s conversion but I hope at least some will wonder how someone as knowledgeable about the Bible as Hank could convert to Orthodoxy, and go to a Divine Liturgy to taste and see what it’s like. Many evangelicals, especially among the younger generation, seem to feel the allure of…

Feb.20, 2013 by Michael Horton in General Emotionally, I am an atheist.  I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.” ~ Isaac Asimov “Emotionally, I am a (believer).  I don’t have the evidence to prove that God (does) exist, but I so strongly suspect that he (does) that I don’t want to waste my time.” ~ Christian It’s a familiar story, but a recent Huffington Post article caught my attention.  The author, a non-Christian physicist, expresses shock after posting an article on the age of the earth.  Expecting a torrent of abuse from religious conservatives, he was surprised that it was the atheistic fundamentalists who piled on. One of the…

In a surprising news release, the leaders of what many are saying is the most effective church in the history of Christianity, gave incredible insight into the success of the church. A report was released that documented the priorities of the church, as well as the way the leaders approached day-to-day operations. Instead of the usual “professional staff report,” this document was slanted toward revealing the practices of the leadership from a layman’s perspective. The report was actually written by a layman – a physician who was closely linked to the key leaders. The church, comprised of nearly 4,000 active attendees, was actually a recent church plant at the time of the report. Somehow the leaders, most of them young and none…

http://www.paulcopan.com/articles/pdf/presumptuousness-of-atheism.pdf Atheist Antony Flew has said that the "onus of proof must lie upon the theist." Unless compelling reasons for God’s existence can be given, there is the "presumption of atheism." Another atheist, Michael Scriven, considers the lack of evidence for God’s existence and the lack of evidence for Santa Claus on the same level.2 However, the presumption of atheism actually turns out to be presumptuousness. The Christian must remember that the atheist also shares the burden of proof, which I will attempt to demonstrate below. First, even if the theist could not muster good arguments for God’s existence, atheism still would not be shown to be true.3 The outspoken atheist Kai Nielsen recognizes this: "To show that an argument is invalid…

  One of the most amazing statements by the Apostle Paul is his indictment of the Galatian Christians for abandoning the Gospel. "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel," Paul declared. As he stated so emphatically, the Galatians had failed in the crucial test of discerning the authentic Gospel from its counterfeits. His words could not be clearer: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to…

Why it is dangerous to make evangelism another form of marketing. For months after I first moved to Nashville, a billboard by the westbound I-40 advertised an alcohol addiction recovery program. But what caught my eye was the billboard's photograph: the coldest, frothiest, most delicious-looking pint of beer that has ever been poured. I never wanted a beer more than I did when I drove past that billboard. And I am not an alcoholic. I wonder how many of the hundreds of people suffering from addiction passed that spot every day and were perversely tempted—not to enter rehab, but to pull off at the next exit for a tall, cold one. Marketing has problems if it makes the consumer pant for the…

O taste and see. (Psalm 34:8) It was Canon Holmes, of India, who more than twenty-five years ago called attention to the inferential character of the average man's faith in God. To most people God is an inference, not a reality. He is a deduction from evidence which they consider adequate; but He remains personally unknown to the individual. `He must be,' they say, `therefore we believe He is.' Others do not go even so far as this; they know of Him only by hearsay. They have never bothered to think the matter out for themselves, but have heard about Him from others, and have put belief in Him into the back of their minds along with the various odds and ends…

Once Mary and Joseph, with a number of friends and relatives, were traveling back home from Jerusalem and, supposing the young Jesus to be in the company, went a whole day's journey before discovering that He had been left behind. Their fault was that they assumed that what they wanted to believe was so in fact. They took too much for granted. A simple check at the start of the journey would have saved them a harrowing experience of fear and uncertainty and two days' unnecessary travel. Theirs was a pardonable fault and one that we ourselves are in great danger of committing. The whole company of evangelicals is traveling home supposing things, some of which may not be true. We had…