Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.
The message that one gets from the questionable theological liaisons is that doctrine doesn’t matter. You can have a Reformed soteriology, but hold onto an Arminian ecclesiology, believe in a non-trinitarian quasi- modalist definition of the God head and even have an Emergent missiology. Who cares about doctrine? Be…..pragmatic!
You don’t have to stay true to your orthodox convictions. Just blend in and appear cool…with a swagger. …Read More!
On a lighter note…don’t read this while sipping coffee infront of your computer:
Sign #1: You’ve given up smoking your pipe because you want to actually be able to afford term life insurance.
Sign #2: Your ‘Jonathan Edwards is My Homeboy’ shirt is faded and now simply reads, ‘Jonathan Edwards is My Home.”
Sign #3: You now read your ESV Bible more than you read John Piper.
Sign #4: You’ve considered writing a book (for P&R rather than Crossway), Old, Well-Rested, and Reformed. [Copyright: Adam Parker, 2010] (You want the name, Collin Hansen!? Come back in 30 years and just try to get it!)
Sign #5: You find yourself warning newbies about ‘the cage stage,’ and then you find yourself reminiscing about terrorizing unsuspecting Arminians back in your day.
Sign #6: You actually know who Van Til is.
Sign #7: You have decided that is is okay to plod.
Sign #8: Your iPod now has more sermons by Sinclair Ferguson than it does of Mark Driscoll. …Read More!
Patrons of the Elephant Room must be seething and foaming at the mouth. The new “brother” they pronounced as orthodox has kicked up another storm. Just barely two months after T.D Jakes was given the thumbs up and a pat on the back by James Macdonald and Mark Driscoll (despite holding to Modalism, Word faith and prosperity teachings) he has now released a new book Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven that has raised a few more eye brows.
T.D. Jakes recently released a new book on forgiveness that has at least one critic accusing the renowned preacher of denying the doctrine of original sin.
Chris Rosebrough, an apologist, rejected Jakes’ statement to CP that forgiveness is innate and unforgiveness is learned from one’s environment. There isn’t a “single passage (in Scripture) that says human beings are by nature forgiving,” he argued.
Rosebrough explored the premise of Jakes’ new book Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven on his radio program, “Fighting for the Faith.”
Jakes is the pastor of the 30,000-member The Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas, and his book claims that people learn how to be unforgiving by behavior modeled to them, so this means they can also unlearn it and become forgiving…
But Rosebrough said not so fast. There are “many passages that say we are by nature evil, sinful, at war with God, objects of God’s wrath, dead in trespasses and sins,” he contended.
Jakes’ idea of being forgiving in nature makes it seem like there is something good in our nature, which also would be running contrary to the Word of God, Rosebrough argued. He called the idea that children are naturally forgiving an “argument from limited experience.” …Read More!
Love him or hate him, Mark Driscoll is a very polarizing personality. Though of late he has drawn alot of concern among many conservative Christians (following his hasty endorsement of heretics, his controversial book and esoteric visions). Now there is Andrew-gate :
Until last fall, a 25-year-old Seattle man named Andrew was happily committed to Mars Hill Church, one of America’s fastest-growing megachurches with more than 5,000 members. He volunteered weekly for security duty at his branch of the church, joined a Bible study group, and had recently become engaged to the daughter of a church elder. Then he made a mistake that found him cast out: He cheated on his fiancee with a community college classmate. The fury over Andrew’s experience—and his decision to publicize the church’s internal disciplinary procedures—has led to accusationsby otherChristians that one of the most powerful evangelical voices in the country, Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll, employs a cultlike leadership style… …Read More!
Well there’s never a quiet day in Evangelicalism. There are fads and there are fads. When Mark Driscoll unleashed a book (some say a Christian’s sex manual) many conservative Christians frowned. Should a pastor be opening his bed room doors and dealing with private issues in a public forum? Well even before Mark could begin his sermon series (on his book) some one else decided to go a little further. You see pastor Ed Young never does things quietly.
Ed and Lisa Young, founders of Texas-based Fellowship Church, will spend 24 hours in bed on the church roof next week and stream themselves live on the Internet to encourage married couples to see firsthand the power of a healthy sex life as prescribed in their new book, Sexperiment.
Two days after their book, Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse, is released Tuesday, the Youngs will take part in a 24-hour “bed-in,” which will be streamed on the book’s website as they engage the audience on issues related to intimacy in marriage. …Read More!
There’s never a quiet day when pastor Mark is in town. And true to his word his Mark Driscoll is in town early this year to revamp your (umm) life. Sort of. When the news in the vine spread that Mark and his wife Grace were going to release a book to set the eyes and tongues of conservative Christians aflame, every one thought it was going to be a revised edition of his earlier serene book called Doctrine. To make sure there was no mistaking what he had in store he had to clarify a few things. This book is not meant for grand ma!
In Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship & Life Together, Mark and Grace Driscoll take a no holds barred approach and candidly delve in to (umm) “the birds and the bees” plus some more! Well a prompt advisory notice greets you as you lie back to begin one of the colorful chapters in Mark’s book : If you are older, from a highly conservative religious background, live far away from a major city, do not spend much time on the internet, or do not have cable television, the odds are that you will want to read this chapter while sitting down, with the medics ready on speed dial.
With my finger on speed dial (on your behalf) I will tell you what the book is about. No, I am too faint hearted but Denny Burk has a graciously insightful review:
The two-hundred plus pages of this book focus on personal testimony and practical teaching so that readers might walk in biblical holiness and avoid the pitfalls experienced by the Driscolls. Real Marriage reads like a marriage seminar that has been put into book form, and there are hints throughout that this is exactly what the book actually is (e.g., p. xiii). Real Marriagehas eleven chapters that are divided into three major sections: Part 1, “Marriage”; Part 2, “Sex”; and Part 3, “The Last Day.” …Read More!
Heads pawed, eyes claws-ed
Then I said: “Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’” Jer 14:13 ESV
With heads bowed and eyes closed, the music was just right. The preacher shuffles and gently casts his gaze over the reverently silent congregation before he beckons, “Put your hand up if you have tried everything and now you want to accept Jesus into your heart. See, you have a God shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it.” A hundred to two hundred hands go up in the air. They ask Jesus into their hearts that day-a decision they may well repeat a few more times through that year.
A major denomination which has 11,500 churches throughout the US – in 1991, their first year of what they called “the decade of harvest,” they got 294,000 decisions for Christ. They found that only 14,000 remained in fellowship. That is, they couldn’t account for 279,000 of their decisions for Jesus. And this is normal modern evangelical statistics when it comes to crusades and local churches. Many converts don’t fall away. They get followed up and squeezed into a local church where they’re surrounded by a good social life, and they stay within the church given assurance they’re saved when there is no grounds for their salvation, because they do not have the things that accompany salvation. –True and False Conversions by Ray Comfort
God shaped hole in heart
When we hear Christian clichés like ‘Accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour;’ ‘Ask Jesus into your heart;’ ‘Invite Christ into your life;’ or ‘Make a decision for Christ’ and find that such theology is not scripturally based then we realise something must have been omitted. In order to be saved, a man must repent (Acts 2:38).Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of repentance and trust in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31, Heb 6:1). How could it sound so right, yet be so un-right? Yeah. Welcome to the shaken and stirred Gospel Lite! Read More
Mark Driscoll is back in the headlines again. The voices are back. Mark had every one laughing (yup, even the cessationists) the other day when he said, “I start getting prophetic dreams. God’s showing me the future… but I can see somebody and I just know their story.” The non cessationist camp took it with a pinch of salt and dismissed him with a slap on the wrist. But this time will going to the naughty step alone remove the deep concerns after this latest tweet? :
Is Mark drifting from orthodoxy and pandering to fortune telling? Surely …Read More!
This page has been created for that bruised and battered soul who needs to listen to a quick short encouraging evangelical sermon jam during a 5 minute lunch break. Read More
A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® 
Poor Mark’s Back in The Repentance Corner.
Pastor Mark Driscoll was the subject of discussion in many blogs recently. I will not repeat the issues of contention (and neither will I link to them) but it seems the elders in his church have taken him to the wood shed and left him with a flea in his ear, he is now in the repentance corner…again.
The question that some circles will always keep bringing up is: What else shall we do in order to reach a generation weaned on Ultimate Fighting, South Park, and hip-hop?
At least one excuse has been scrawled off the wall -thanks to Mark. When talking to men about church, no more doodling and twiddling thumbs about macho bible heroes as draw strings like David being “a warrior king who started killing people as a boy and who was also a songwriter and musician”.
Just preach the gospel, Mark. It is still the power of God for salvation both for the blue and white collared guys…and the effeminate ones too.