A few days ago my wife Joy read an article which she thought should be mentioned in this week’s E-Letter and sent me the link. I opened up the WorldNetDaily article Apologetics: Cure for America’s social ills, and the first thing I noticed is that a friend (Anthony Horvath) authored it. Anthony, like so many others we have met over the years, became involved in apologetics and discernment out of a desire to reach the lost. His burden for the current state of affairs in the church is all too familiar:

No sooner do we put our attention on our apologetic and evangelism efforts do we come to some very hard truths about the state of Christian education. Indeed, when we compare the overall thrust of the youth and education programs of many churches with the nature of the challenge arrayed against us, there can be little doubt as to the extent of the problem. If we wanted godly young men and women who could carefully discern how various legislative endeavors threaten to hurt and harm millions of people – even as we speak, or in a generation hence – one cannot see how cutesy skits, movie nights and glorified Sunday School curricula will achieve that goal.

At the same time Anthony and others are raising this concern Brian McLaren is traveling the country and doing his Deep Shift: Everything Must Change Conference and the trailer “The Shift” film (not directly related to McLaren) came out. Watching the trailer and thinking about McLaren took me back to my child hood days when my mother would sometimes say to me, “If Johnny jumped off of the edge of a cliff, would you jump too?” It may not seem at first blush that all of this is related but let’s see. (more…)

I’ve just begun to digest the Evangelical Manifesto , a twenty page, eloquently written statement about what it means to be an evangelical, spearheaded by such luminaries as Dallas Willard, David Neff—editor and chief of Christianity Today, and Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary. It comes complete with study guide. The first half of the manifesto is a basic rehashing of Christian doctrine—kind of like the Nicene and Athanasian Creed but without all that pesky Latin. The second half however reads like a cross between an apology and a Christianity Today op-ed on church, state, and the sins of the evangelical right.

Of course it’s the last part that’s getting all the press. Seizing on the mea culpa and ignoring the theology, USA Today has the headline: “Manifesto Aims to Make ‘Evangelical’ less Political”. The LA Times sports the headline: (more…)

Many love Brian McLaren and his books. It comes across as a breath of fresh air to them. Most probably are simply aware of his name and that he is popular but beyond that don’t really know what he has to say. Some are wondering if he is a Christian though few would dare to answer that negatively. It just wouldn’t be good P.R. After all, he is promoted by Willow Creek Community Church, Saddleback Community Church, Christianity Today, Rob Bell and many other big names. I suppose in order to answer the question we would have to know what one’s definition of Christian is. If the definition is someone who was born in the United States, attended an Evangelical or Fundamentalist church and then went on to pastor an Evangelical church the answer would be yes. If the definition is someone who wants to call all people to social action, eliminate poverty, eliminate sickness, redistribute the wealth, and create a Utopia on earth in the name of God, then yes he is a Christian. If the definition is someone who has accepted the atoning sacrifice and physical resurrection of Christ it becomes more questionable. As Brett Kunkle points out in Essential Concerns Regarding the Emerging Church McLaren doesn’t know why Jesus died on the cross and floats out the option of that being an act of “divine child abuse.” McLaren writes: (more…)

Can anything beat the feeling of cuddling up to your favorite cup of coffee in front of a stack of steaming, syrup-smothered flapjacks with a side of sausage links as you get set to dive into a study of God’s word with your favorite Bible teacher? I’m more of an egg man (over hard, thank you very much) than a flapjack man (although lately it’s been more like Egg Beaters^® with a side of soy-based sausages), but there just seems to be something about all that caffeine and sodium and cholesterol coursing through my bloodstream and coagulating in my brain that really makes those tough passages in Scripture open up with a whole new meaning! How ’bout you?

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Ben Stein’s film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was released on the April 18th. I didn’t have an opportunity to see it right away but have been encouraging others to go to the movies. A friend, Dr. Ron Allen, emailed to let me know that he had seen it and thought it was very well done. He and several others have mentioned that the interview with Richard Dawkins at the end is worth the entire price of the ticket. Another friend emailed and said she hadn’t seen it but had read some negative response from some of those from the anti-intelligent design camp who had been interviewed for the film. The Center for Science and Culture published a fairly lengthy (three parts), although not exhaustive paper by Casey Luskin titled, MICHAEL SHERMER’S FACT-FREE ATTACK ON EXPELLED EXPOSES INTOLERANCE OF DARWINISTS TOWARDS PRO-INTELLIGENT DESIGN SCIENTISTS On Monday Joy and I decided to take in the movie in the afternoon and am very glad I did. Shermer exposed himself (more…)