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Archives for May 2011

by on 5.30.11

together for ?

Yes, it’s the Rick and John show once again. Appearing at your favorite popularizer of Reformed theology web-site or your favorite popularizer of Purposeful theology web-site. So says Baptist Press.

Frankly, I’m appalled at the kinds of slanders that have been brought against this book by people whose methods of critique, if they were consistently applied to the Bible, would undo it as the Word of God.

Which book? Purpose Driven Life.

Who said it? John Piper … see the video at one of the links above.

When and Where? May 1, 2011, during the Desiring God Regional Conference at Saddleback Church.

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Filed Under: Issues, New Evangelicalism, Separation
by on 5.30.11

Mahaney: “Worldliness,” ch. 2

Review: Chapter 2 – “God, My Heart, and Media” by Craig Cabaniss in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, C. J. Mahaney, ed.

A friend of mine loaned me his copy of this little book for my review. Since it is a compilation of six essays by five Sovereign Grace Ministries clergymen, I thought it best to review the book section by section. Previously: Chapter One.

The second chapter is written by Craig Cabaniss, pastor of Grace Church in Frisco, TX at the time of publication.

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Filed Under: Book Review, Mahaney, Personalities, Worldliness
by on 5.26.11

Mahaney: “Worldliness,” ch. 1

Review: Chapter 1 – “Is This Verse in Your Bible?” by C. J. Mahaney in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, C. J. Mahaney, ed.

A friend of mine loaned me his copy of this little book for my review. Since it is a compilation of six essays by five Sovereign Grace Ministries clergymen, I thought it best to review the book section by section.

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Filed Under: Book Review, Mahaney, Personalities, Worldliness
by on 5.23.11

what do you think about apostles … today?

I grew up in Alberta, Canada, for any who might not know. Alberta is one of the wealthiest provinces in Canada due to huge oilfields. The oilfields were mainly discovered after World War II. Prior to that, Alberta was largely an agricultural economy subject to the ups and downs of world markets. And of course, the Great Depression was a huge downer.

During those years, a radio preacher got interested in the theories of Social Credit. He lobbied the government to adopt these policies, but when rebuffed formed the Social Credit party and became Premier of the province in 1935. He was Premier for eight years, but died suddenly, to be replaced by his right hand man.

The preacher’s name was William Aberhart. He was a complicated individual, very insecure as a person in some ways, and very eclectic in his theology, although we would probably think of him as basically orthodox.

When I say eclectic, I mean that he would pick up new theology as he went along, becoming an enthusiast for some new quirk as it came to his attention. He mostly served as a lay preacher, but at one point he led a Baptist church in Calgary to designate him as its “apostle”. Under him, there served a pastor, but he was the “apostle.”

What do you think of that?

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Filed Under: Charismatism, Issues, New Evangelicalism, Separation
by on 5.20.11

a little family news

I’m pleased to be able to tell you all that my son and his wife are expecting their first child sometime in November. I have been ‘in the know’ for several weeks now… and biting my tongue to keep it all in until they were ready to tell the world.

Duncan and Meg are shortly on the move from Greenville, SC to Edmonton, AB, the place of my birth (and, really, the place of choice if I could live anywhere in the world!! Who needs the ocean and the mountains and the trees when you could have all that sky! And those fields! But I digress…)

So big changes are coming in our family, and especially for Duncan and Meg. We are looking forward to an eventful year.

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Filed Under: Family
by on 5.9.11

why not join the CEs?

On SI, regular commenter Ron Bean asked the question:

For the sake of summary, simplicity and specificity could someone (perhaps RPittman, who last used this phrase) list some of these many problems of CE’s?

I responded with a list of four items that came to mind immediately, but I’d like to expand on that list a bit here.

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Filed Under: Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, Issues, Separation
by on 5.5.11

who is systemic now?

As a follow-up to the ‘systemic?’ post, I ran across another site discussing a church and abuse. I was researching a different topic and hit on this site due to one of the search terms I was using. The current top post is one that addresses a very similar story to those we have been faced with in the recent controversies involving ‘IFB’ churches. Here is a sample paragraph:

Here is a brief description of how _______________ has in the past typically handled sex abuse issues in their church.   This depiction can be affirmed by numerous former members who have had similar experiences.   The perpetrator of a sex crime and his family were brought under the care of a pastor.   This would involve counseling, accountability sessions and possible minor restrictions regarding movement in the church during services.   People “at risk” were not notified.   The victim and victim’s family however were usually confronted with opposition from leadership by minimizing and/or invalidating particular aspects of the victim’s story.

Sound familiar? Sound systemic?

Now… before you click on the ‘more’ tag and see the links, a few caveats.

  1. This is just one side of the story – the side of the victims. I can’t say everything in this side of the story is true.
  2. This story appears on a ‘____ survivors’ site: in other words, the people who write here have an axe to grind against _____. Everything posted here is from a disgruntled perspective.
  3. I don’t think the basic facts in this post are just invented or made up by someone who is merely disgruntled. According to the post, someone confessed to a felony in the case. However, clearly there is a lot of bad blood between those telling the story and the ones they are telling the story against. A lot of facts are left out and there is no independent verification. It is possible that some of the things complained about are the sins of the complainant, not the sins of the ones being complained against. However, some facts in this story appear to be true.

I should note that this is a fairly current story as you will see from some of the links I post below the jump.

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Filed Under: Abuse, Issues