O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your lovingkindness. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more
Ever since Sachi Nakamura (Twitter) contacted me about translating King Jesus Gospel into Japanese I’ve looked forward to this day: and here it is, whether you can read it or not. King Jesus Gospel in Japanese, so tell your friends who are Japanese or who can read or speak Japanese. It is beyond an honor to open a package to see copies of one of your books translated into a foreign language. Thanks Sachi. For those who are not aware... Read more
Jonathan Merritt, at RNS, opens his article with this and I wonder what you would tell someone who asked you this? A friend of mine who was raised in a fundamentalist home told me a disturbing story recently. One Sunday morning, the youth pastor at her Southern Baptist Church passed out three-inch galvanized nails to all the students in his care. He instructed them to keep these in their pockets at all times. Whenever they had an impure thought or disrespected... Read more
American Founders, their writings online. Does reading make you a better person? Yes and No. “A battle over books has erupted recently on the pages of The New York Timesand Time. The opening salvo was Gregory Currie’s essay, “Does Great Literature Make Us Better?” which asserts that the widely held belief that reading makes us more moral has little support. In response, Annie Murphy Paul weighed in with “Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer.” Her argument is that “deep reading,” the kind of reading... Read more
From NPR: What is the best example of this that you’ve seen? American politics has become like a big square dance. When the music stops after an election, people switch to the other side on a number of issues, depending on whether their party remains in power. That was pretty clear this week, when polls revealed more Democrats than Republicans support tracking of phone traffic by the National Security Agency — the exact opposite of where things stood under President... Read more
Sam Storms, among others, is part of Restored Hope Network, a new initiative that takes up where Exodus International used to be, and this is their “What We Believe” page, and they have a Board of Directors, and their first conference coincides with the last conference of Exodus International: We, the members of the Restored Hope Network, believe that salvation is an unmerited gift of God’s love given to those who believe the gospel. The gospel declares that God exalted... Read more
John Frye, who writes this weekly column, From the Shepherd’s Nook, begins a promising series on the pastor and the family. The Pastor’s Family: Part 1 “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This noted opening sentence from Leo Tolstoy’s classic, Anna Karenina, sets the frame for the next few posts on the pastor’s family. I like Tolstoy’s observation because it points to the particularity of families. In his massive novel (aren’t all... Read more
So, we are now ready to ask, What did Jesus think of women and How did Jesus treat women? I provide a series of questions for your consideration. A good place to begin here is with D.M. Scholer, “Women” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels or with B. Witherington III, Women. (These items can be found in the first post in this series.) My recommendation: list all the evidence about women in the Gospels and sort out according to the... Read more
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From Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International: It is strange to be someone who has both been hurt by the church’s treatment of the LGBT community, and also to be someone who must apologize for being part of the very system of ignorance that perpetuated that hurt. Today it is as if I’ve just woken up to a greater sense of how painful it is to be a sinner in the hands of an angry church…. To Members of the LGBTQ... Read more
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