Abortion, the Death Penalty, and Our Nation’s Hypocrisy
Idaho Senator Bob Nonini has come under fire recently for nodding his head in agreement with the view that those who murder a baby in the womb should face criminal charges. CrossPolitic hosted a live show interviewing three of the Republican candidates for Lt. Governor in Idaho on Monday, April 2nd at the historic Nuart […]
Lost Words
In his classic book, The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul bemoans the absence from our vocabulary of certain, once-familiar, King James Version words. It wasn’t so much the loss of antiquated verb forms like walketh and talketh, or sayest and mayest that bothered him. It wasn’t obsolete pronouns like thou and thee, or thy and […]
Easter Invitation – Bring Your Shipwreck
“The Church is like a great ship sailing the sea of the world and tossed by the waves of temptation in this life.” St. Boniface, letter 78 From the very beginning of our lives, we are dependent upon received grace. Grace that we have never given. Grace that we cannot immediately return. We are born […]
Dread Clouds – An Interview with Author Hannah Grieser
Hannah, thank you for joining us at the Westminster Confession of Funk hosted by CrossPolitic. The Clouds Ye So Much Dread was such a delight to read. But it is obvious that a lot of tears and pain was required to fill this particular pen with ink. Do you find it odd to have […]
Wing Lift
Wing Lift Psalm 91:3-4 Death-wrenched, life-drenched, each pinched soul fledged to soar on raptorial sails. A fowler-freed fire-bred goldfinch, carols unhitched, stretching and reaching, on wind-held wings. Held in glide and lift, windhover pinion, piloted upwards, against the pull, against the pitch, rich wind hovers over the face of the waters fixing and fastening the […]
The Ichabod Church
“And thus was he called Ichabod, for the glory of the Lord had departed.” 1 Samuel 4:21 The rising tide of heresy in the latter half of the fourth century very nearly engulfed the entire church. Most of the Nicean fathers had either passed into glory or were constrained by dotage. Even the seemingly ageless […]
Resounding Nehemaiads
“Jeremiad.” Definition: an elaborate and prolonged lamentation; a cry of woe; and expression of righteous indignation. “Nehemiad.” Definition: an elaborate and prolonged humiliation; a cry of grief; an expression of righteous repentance. Well might we plead the case for an outpouring of Jeremiads from Reformed and Evangelical pulpits in our day. What with inhuman humanism […]
Meaning It, Believing It, and Living It
It is one of the great ironies of our day that Christians can pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” and not actually mean anything by it. Indeed, it is a stunning paradox that we can live as if such a prayer could not be answered. Even worse, we can […]
Doxology
A doxology is a short chorus of praise to the Lord, often sung as a stand-alone piece or as a coda at the conclusion of psalms, hymns, or canticles. The word comes from the Greek doxa, meaning “appearance” or “glory,” and logia, meaning “study” or “declaration.” Common doxologies include the Gloria in Excelsis Deo and […]
R.C. Sproul 1939-2017
In 1976, in tribute to his own mentor, John Gerstner, Dr. Sproul declared, “In an era of Church history when theology is in chaos, the Church is being shaken at its foundations, and Christian ethics shift and slide with every novel theology, we are grateful for the vivid example of one who stands in the midst of confusion as a bright and shining light.”
The Madgeburg Confession
By the 16th century virtually no one disagreed on the fact that the West needed to be reformed. What they disagreed on was what that reform should entail and how it was to be effected. In frustrated tension, dozens of competing factions, sects, schisms, rifts, rebellions, and divisions roiled just beneath the surface of the […]
Rob Bell’s “What Is the Bible” Part 5
It’s common these days for heretical teachers to point out something that is clearly in the text of Scripture and then act as if there is some kind of misty significance to it all that those truncated fundie Bible teachers must have missed. Then when all is said and done, the teacher will draw just […]
Idol Matching 3
Recap In this series, we’ve been dealing with some of the idols in the world that need to be torn down and the fact that Christians keep their own version of these idols in their hearts. Same-sex mirage out there is akin in some ways to fornication and sexual looseness or an unbiblical desire for […]
Reformation Grace in “East of Eden”
This autumn marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s pinning of the ninety-five theses. Whether you’re Lutheran or not, Luther and the Reformers’ impact on the world is undeniable, unforgettable. Of all Luther’s works, the De Servo Arbitrio (On the Bondage of the Will) cut to the heart of what the Reformers defended: It is in […]
Rob Bell’s “What Is the Bible?” Part 4
Given what Bell has said so far about the Bible, a brief excursus about the doctrine of Scripture would be helpful. As I have pointed out, one of Bell’s problems is that he will simply not accept some things that the Bible says, especially what the Bible says about itself. Several salient points should be […]
How Do Millennials Thrive in the Church?
A Church for the Next Generation, Part Three In the past two posts, we’ve looked at whether young people are going to church less, and why some young people leave the church. Now I want to answer another why question: if the church is as stuffy and old-fashioned as we’re always hearing, why do so […]
Six Day Creationism and Evolution
Most of us have been pulled over by a cop. Imagine for a moment that this happens to you. The cop flashes his lights, you dutifully pull over, hand over your license and registration. He informs you that he pulled you over because you didn’t stop at the stop sign. You respond with, “But officer, […]
Idol Matching
There are some chilling similarities between the idols out there and the sacrifices they require, and the idols in our own hearts.
The Problems with “Optimistic Nihilism”
The world was made for us. It’s a comforting idea, isn’t it? And for many thousands of years, humans believed it was true. Our ancestors looked up at the sky and saw a bright yellow ball which lit our days and warmed our skin. There were plants and animals for us to eat. There was […]
Six Reasons Millennials Leave the Church
Part two in the series “A Church for the Next Generation” In my last post, I took a quick look at church attendance among young people and concluded that the fear-mongering about young people leaving the church was wrong and misplaced. For example, I showed that the demographic rise of “nones,” or religiously unaffiliated people, […]