"His thoughts are not our thoughts"

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…

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.…

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…

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…

  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…

 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…

(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…