fundamentalism by blunt instrument
Unlike many of my American friends, I have no particular love for guns or for the notion that citizens should have the right to bear arms to protect themselves against government tyranny. For such friends, I remind them that from my perspective, the red coats were the good guys
I say that to establish this point at the outset: I have no particular axe to grind against gun control.
I do have questions about gun control, however. The biggest question is this: will it work?
Today the FBFI launches a new ministry, a blog (yes, indeed, a blog) called Proclaim & Defend. The blog is going to be the online voice of the FBFI point of view. We expect to publish articles from our print magazine, FrontLine (I encourage you to subscribe!), as well as regular blog posts from various FBF pastors and other sympathizers. We will also publish as much audio from our various fellowship meetings as possible. We currently have published audio from four fellowship meetings in 2011. Subscribe to our podcast and look for more to come soon (just two weeks to the Northwest Fellowship meeting).
Proclaim & Defend is a little bare just now. We plan to fill it up right away with articles designed to edify the saints, proclaim God’s truth, and take a stand for the purity of the church, as fundamentalists have always done. We begin by publishing a serialization of articles from the recently published Jan/Feb 2012 edition of FrontLine. The subject of this edition is “Protecting Our Children.” We launch P&D with an excellent article by Dave Shumate entitled “What We Are Learning”. Be sure to read it as it comes out over the next three days.
It is my privilege to serve as chairman of the Communications Committee which is charged with the responsibility of coordinating the Proclaim & Defend blog effort. I am glad for the opportunity and trust that these efforts might minister to needs around the world.
The FBFI Annual Conference was held at Crosspointe Baptist Church in Indianapolis last week. The meeting was a great blessing. The sermons are now available at SermonAudio. I am providing a link to all the messages below.
If you don’t have time to listen to all, I would recommend the following as highlights:
All of Dr. Ed Nelson’s messages. Dr. Nelson was ‘on fire’ as I described it to a friend. He is a tremendous, faithful man of God who the Lord has used to establish many churches. He is in his eighties – 86? – and still a man being used of God.
The message by Brent Floyd, a word to young men from a young man was excellent.
And Tim Berlin brought a fantastic message on unity. Very well done, had the right focus and is an example of how those who contend must not be contentious.
I’d also like to recommend the workshop by Jeremy Sweatt. Very interesting look at the thinking of younger fundamentalists.
Here is the whole list (in order of appearance):
The Church: The Pillar & Ground of the Truth
Dr. Ed Nelson | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
Who Will Be Your King?
Dr. John Vaughn | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
Hope Deferred
Christopher Williams | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
Earnestly Contend for the Faith
Dr. Ed Nelson | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
But Continue Thou
Brent Floyd | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
Remnant Theology
Dr. Ed Nelson | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
Endeavoring to Keep the Unity of the Spirit
Tim Berlin | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
Jehoshaphat: Yahweh Judges
Rick Arrowood | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
How Do We Arrive at Truth?
Dr. Bud Steadman | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
The Heart of a Young Fundamentalist
Jeremy Sweatt | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
A Biblical Look at Our Church Music
Dr. Charles Phelps | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
Helping Teens in a Changing Culture
Dan Fitzgerald | 2011 FBFI Annual Meeting
~~~
May the Lord make these words profitable to all who hear.
An interesting book review appeared on the Christianity Today site a few days ago. [This is no endorsement of Christianity Today.]
The book in question is America’s Four Gods: What We Say about God—and What That Says about Us. The key paragraphs from the CT review article follow:
The American religious landscape is admittedly as varied and complex as the geographical landscape. This makes any taxonomy of religious beliefs necessarily artificial, as the authors note. So they start with what American religious believers have in common: namely, the notion that God is loving. This is something some 85 percent of Americans affirm.
Beneath that superficial similarity, though, is a range of conceptions about God’s character. Those conceptions dramatically alter our understanding of the shape his love takes in our world. Froese and Bader examine two questions whose answers, they contend, determine more about a person’s cultural and political worldview than any other sociological factor. First, to what extent does God interact with the world? Second, to what extent does God judge the world? As the authors put it, "The answers to these questions predict the substance of our worldviews much better than the color of our skin, the size of our bank account, the political party we belong to, or whether we wear a white Stetson or faded Birkenstocks."
Respondents’ answers lead the authors to identify four conceptions of God among the American religious public: (1) the authoritative God, who both judges and is closely engaged in the world; (2) the benevolent God, who is "engaged but nonjudgmental"; (3) the critical God, who happens to be judgmental but disengaged; and (4) the distant God, who is neither engaged nor judgmental, and could care less about how humans muck about.
This is probably an oversimplification, but it may still provide a useful categorization to keep in mind when speaking to people about the Lord. The reviews on CBD (see link above) seem to see a similar usefulness to the book.
Alas, another book to add to my list of "I’d like to read that some day."
Dear friends, thank you for your prayers. It is 10 pm Mountain time. A little over a half hour ago my dear Dad went to heaven. He slipped quietly away. With the hiss of the oxygen going I didn’t even notice his passing.
My dad was a faithful Christian man. He led me to the Lord many years ago. I thank God for him. He has been the single greatest influence on my life. I’ll write more later.
Praise God for redemption, for Jesus Christ, and for the Sweet Comforter. We sorrow not as those who have no hope.
Maranatha! Don Johnson, Jer 33.3
Some good thoughts on preaching by Dave over here. It reminds me of a book I am reading.
It is called The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, by James G. Leyburn. I picked up during a recent vacation in Tennessee at one of the state’s excellent historical sites. (To my chagrin, I see I could have gotten it on Amazon for $6 less.)
I am a sucker for historical sites and for historical books that you find there. My kids make fun of me… (this time, one of my sons said, “Oh boy, get ready for more Civil War illustrations!”)
This particular book traces the American immigrants who became known in America as the Scotch-Irish from their time in Scotland to their first emigration to Ireland (Ulster) and from there to America. I am just finishing the description of life in Scotland prior to the great exodus.
The story is fascinating (OK, so I’m a nerd). Leyburn was a prominent sociology professor at Washington & Lee University. Their library is named after him. I don’t know if he professed to be a Christian or not, but the book seems to be written from a secular perspective. That’s what makes it’s comments on preaching and the Scottish Reformation so interesting.
This is the second and last of the psalms named "A Psalm of David" in Book 4 of the psalms. It reflects the thoughts of a mature David, admonishing his own soul in a time of discipline with his knowledge of the Lord’s past benefits and the Lord’s everlasting goodness. David’s thoughts become a hymn for our admonition as well.
Today the contrast between Adam and Christ highlights the incredible magnitude of Christ’s gracious gift. The act of Adam plunged all men into sin – we all sinned in Adam. But we didn’t stop sinning with that one sin. Our lives are filled with sin. The gift of God in Jesus Christ answers every one of those human sins – working out of the many sins it pronounces the sentence: "Just before God". Hallelujah!
Today we make an attempt at defining the term ‘worldly’ and begin to look at a key passage for understanding worldliness, Titus 2.11-12.
Our message today looks at the topic of women’s dress, especially in the context of public worship. The way a woman dresses should flow from a godly inner testimony, but it does reflect itself in an appropriate, sober, modest style of dress.
We’ve been enjoying the Spring Olympics out here on the Wet Coast. Of course, that means the sporting events are interrupted by commercials.
One commercial we have been seeing over and over up here is promoting Tim Horton’s coffee shops, almost a national institution up here. It is one of those very few commercials that you don’t get tired of, so I thought my American readers might enjoy seeing it:
The screen here in Canada says it is based on a true story, but I haven’t been able to find any background on it.
I did find this discussion of it, which I think helps capture the emotion of the spot… and the ‘Canadian-ness’ of it as well.
One of the interminable theological debates is the source of faith. Some insist that faith is given by God. Others insist that faith is what a man does himself when he believes. I doubt very much that a blog post by me will bring this debate to any sort of resolution.
What I want to talk about, though, is something I heard in a recorded sermon preached by a friend of mine. He said something like this (loose paraphrase from memory):
God gives you faith. He gives it to you in such a way that genuine Christian faith will lead you to persevere in that faith. They won’t be able to burn it out of you, you will persevere to the end.
And such like…
Well. This raises some questions in my mind:
I just got an e-mail notification of a resource put out by Zondervan, the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament. It looks like a fascinating source of information.
Readers should note that such publications often support liberal views on Biblical dates and tend to minimize the miraculous. Nevertheless, if read with discernment, such resources can provide valuable background material for studying and teaching the Bible.
A sample is offered where you can read the Ezra-Nehemiah section and see what is offered in this set.
The latest audio from the GBCvic
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