The Manhattan Declaration: A Bold Statement on Family and Faith

Last updated on: November 20, 2009 at 8:22 pm By Owen Strachan

Today at 12pm, a group of evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox leaders released a statement on the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. Called the Manhattan Declaration, this statement represents a bold rebuke of current cultural trends and a clear call to the culture to recognize the harm it is doing itself in crucial areas. The statement was drafted by Robby George, Timothy George, and Chuck Colson. Prominent evangelical signatories include Al Mohler, Russ Moore, David Dockery, Danny Akin, Marvin Olasky,... Read more

ETS Live-Blog: Bruce Ware’s 2009 Presidential Address

Last updated on: November 20, 2009 at 2:12 am By Owen Strachan

I am live-blogging the 2009 Evangelical Theological Society Presidential Address by Dr. Bruce Ware, professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY). Dr. Ware’s message, entitled “The Man Christ Jesus,” looks to be customarily rich and insightful. It is an honor to attend this address in New Orleans and to share this exciting moment with Dr. Ware, my mother-in-law, Jodi Ware, and the ETS community. Unfortunately, my wife, Bethany Strachan, oldest daughter of Dr. Ware, and... Read more

Carl Trueman on How to Keep One’s Soul in the Academy

Last updated on: November 17, 2009 at 5:53 pm By Owen Strachan

A powerful exhortation by Carl Trueman to theological students to cling to the local church from the most recent Themelios: The temptation for a theological student at this point, of course, is to make the obvious answer to this: well, I study the things of God all day long; I am hardly likely to forget about God, who he is and what he has done, am I? Well, there is forgetting and there is forgetting. Remembering that there is a... Read more

Al Mohler and Walter Price on the Young Guns

Last updated on: November 16, 2009 at 11:44 pm By Owen Strachan

One of the most encouraging trends in evangelical church life that I’ve seen recently is the engagement of the older and younger generations of pastors and church leaders. Instead of standing apart from and casting aspersions at one another, current leaders are reaching out to younger leaders, and helping them along. Walter Price, senior pastor of Fellowship in the Pass Church in Beaumont, California, recently spoke at the California Southern Baptist Convention and gave a terrific challenge to his peers to... Read more

The Link 11.13.09: Steven Curtis Chapman, Young Rapping Conservatives, and Sarah Palin Populism

Last updated on: November 13, 2009 at 6:57 pm By Owen Strachan

1. Steven Curtis Chapman has a beautiful new album out called Beauty Will Rise. Buy the album. Seriously. Even if, like me, you rarely buy CCM stuff, you should buy this one. It’s filled with sadness, truth, and hope. I don’t know that I’ve heard anything quite like it. Also, here’s a CNN interview with Chapman. Praise God for how this man and the family he leads has responded to this tragedy. [Update: glowing NYT review, a rarity, to say... Read more

Women Fighting, and Men Doing Little About it

Last updated on: November 12, 2009 at 10:18 pm By Owen Strachan

I have been shocked of late to find two videos showing women enacting brutality against one another. Femininity is a contested sphere nowadays, both literally and figuratively. First, I came across a video of a recent fight between women in a mall food court. A massive crowd watches the awful scene before two men–including basketball coaches Tim Floyd and Henry Bibby–gingerly break it up. Second, I watched in horror as college women’s soccer players battered one another, with one young... Read more

Christianity and Money: Two Recent Stories from The Atlantic

Last updated on: November 11, 2009 at 9:49 pm By Owen Strachan

The Atlantic has recently published two stories that touch on Christianity and money. The first, “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” by Hanna Rosin, covers the prosperity gospel. Here’s a snapshot from the piece that touches on Joel Osteen: Your Best Life Now, which has fueled a TV show that Osteen claims is now seen in 200 million homes worldwide, opens with a story of a man on vacation in Hawaii. He was “a good man who had achieved a modest... Read more

George Will on Supposed Climate Change

Last updated on: November 11, 2009 at 12:05 am By Owen Strachan

The perenially sane George Will just weighed in on some very bad news for climate-change doomsdayists: On Nov. 2, The Wall Street Journal‘s Jeffrey Ball reported some inconvenient data. Soon after the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—it shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Thinking Man’s Thinking Man—reported that global warming is “unequivocal,” there came evidence that the planet’s temperature is beginning to cool. “That,” Ball writes, “has led to one point of agreement: The models are imperfect.”... Read more

New England Ministry: An AP Report on Encouraging Developments and Discouraging Trends

Last updated on: November 9, 2009 at 9:16 pm By Owen Strachan

From an Associated Press story linked on John Starke’s blog: Trinity College’s American Religious Identification Survey released this year showed New England overtaking the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region in the country. Twenty-two percent of respondents here said they have no religious faith of any kind, highest in the country. In a Gallup poll this year, all six New England states were in the Top 10 least religious in the country, with Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts... Read more

John Piper Tunes in and So Can You: The Henry Center Website Report

Last updated on: November 5, 2009 at 9:51 pm By Owen Strachan

An update from the Henry Center on its website. We’ve been pushing the site in recent days, and it’s great to give a very brief public report: What do folks like John Piper, Justin Taylor, Millard Erickson, and Thabiti Anyabwile have in common? Answer: They all check the HCTU website and listen to its content. Plenty of other folks have been, too. Let us give you some exciting stats that show how successful the year has been for the Center:... Read more