The congregation of New Hope Village Church embodies what it means to make evangelism a top priority. After spending a long Sunday gathered together to remind one another that evangelism is the most important thing, they're all fired up to return next week and reaffirm this paramount importance yet again. Read more
"Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth." Read more
"Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love." -- Reinhold Niebuhr Read more
Originally posted January 20, 2006. You can read this entire series, for free, via the convenient Left Behind Index. This post is also part of the ebook collection The Anti-Christ Handbook: Volume 1, available on Amazon for just $2.99. Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook, completing all the posts on the first Left Behind book, is also now available. Left Behind, pp. 189-190 The Rev. Bruce Barnes is an odd man. He’s twitchy and God-haunted like Hazel Motes in Wise Blood. He says... Read more
Pat McCrory really, really wants to look in your young daughter's pants. And the North Carolina governor's fascination with inspecting the private parts of private citizens is going to wind up costing residents of his state millions of dollars defending the lawsuits that will inevitably 1) challenge, and 2) overturn the law he just signed, which was hastily drafted and passed by Republicans in the state legislature in a special session yesterday. Read more
John Ehrlichman explains just what the Nixon administration intended when it launched the "War on Drugs." It wasn't about drugs. It was about hippies and black people. Plus: John Paul 2 was never "neoliberal;" wrong turns on the "Romans Road;" African Proverbs and old Cherokee stories; and Phyllis Schlafly is still not dead. Read more
Scot McKnight writes that we must read Paul "in a Jewish context in which Judaism is not understood as works righteousness over against which Christianity teaches election by grace." That's the "new perspective on Paul," and it's really a much bigger deal than most of our dry, academic discussion of it sometimes makes it sound. We're having to retrace our steps to correct for a wrong turn our theology took almost 500 years ago. Read more
Why I've opted not to talk The Only Thing Everyone Is Supposed To Be Talking About this time around. Read more
Here again is your periodic reminder that the Pledge of Allegiance is the creepiest creepy thing from Creepytown. Also: A terrific Nick Cave/Dr. Seuss mash-up; fossils from Noah's flood found in Texas; and the apotheosis of white American Christianity. Read more
One way or another, characterization happens. It's unavoidable, even for the worst writers and the worst story-tellers. Jerry Jenkins may have no interest in developing his characters and no patience for it, but he's constantly revealing character despite that -- doing so accidentally, unconsciously, and unintentionally. And what he shows us contradicts what he tells us. Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In