Rant on Halloween. Rant on Reformation Day. Visit to Celebrate Recovery.

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UPDATE: The Horton question is part of a larger symposium at Touchstone Magazine on “What is an evangelical?”

Michael Horton answers the question: What would you say to someone tempted to become Catholic or Orthodox?

Some of you people need an open thread so you can vent a bit. Well….this is your post.

Let’s hear your reaction to Dr. Horton- no matter what team you are on.

Unless you get personally insulting to someone, you can say whatever you like. I’m out of your hair.

UPDATE: Josh S has a good post on different views of Reformation history.

UPDATE: Someone please turn down that “whining” sound. Is it me? Or the guy fisking me? I’m really on your side, O panic stricken fans of the Reformation.

UPDATE: ***sigh*** Pastor Gary reviews the post. So….is any sincerely motivated division of Christianity worth celebrating? We can party all year long! Let me be clear: Division may be necessary, but reform without division would be better. We can clelebrate what was good in the Reformation and we can deplore what was bad in Catholicism at the time. Then we can deplore the bad things that resulted in Protestantism/evangelicalism and recognize the good things that were and are present in Catholicism. It’s not a team sport. It’s the body of Christ. Read John 17 for Christ’s sake (literally.)

It’s fairly obvious that, at least among some Christians, “Reformation Day” is a new holiday to be celebrated with all the enthusiasm we once reserved for actual holidays. (Lutherans: Party on. You’ve earned it.) I’m waiting for the photos of the “Dress Like a Reformer” party at a reformed church near you.

I’ll admit to having donned the Luther costume and done the Reformation Day lecture for the students at our school on a number of occasions, and I don’t regret having done so. Most of what I said was true. Well….some of it.

In the past year, I’ve read a lot about the reformation and even more about Luther. I’m currently finishing off McGrath’s Christianity’s Dangerous Idea- a popular history of Protestantism that’s right up to speed- and I’m almost done with Richard Marius’s Luther: The Christian Between God and Death, one of the most profitable biographies of Luther I’ve ever read and I read at least one every couple of years. [Continue reading]

This is an essay from 2005 that I believe has been helpful to a few parents. It was printed in Modern Reformation.

Christian parents are always on my mind and heart. I know it’s difficult parenting children when the thing we most want for them can only come into their lives, ultimately, by the grace of God and their own openness. Many parents will have a season of apparent or actual unbelief before the seeds of faith begin to bear fruit.

If you are finished with the parenting years, this essay may be helpful to some in your church or small group.

READ: A Prayer For Alex: What to do when your child says he doesn’t believe any more.

UPDATE II: David Head at Ponder Anew has an excellent post on this development.

UPDATE: The classy Amy Welborn gives a Catholic perspective.

One of the things I like about being an evangelical is that we can just stop, no matter how big and successful we are, and say, “We’re wrong,” and it doesn’t threaten a thing in our faith.

Willow Creek Community Church is making news with its announcement that the programs weren’t working. The formerly largest church in America is going to help its members design individual paths of spiritual practices that produce discipleship. Guitar Priest and others are excited about the news and its implications for pursuing real discipleship rather than church, program and facility growth.

Many years ago, I was trained in one of Southern Baptist’s most intensive discipleship programs: Masterlife. I spent most of three years taking approximately 50 people through one of the best designed intentional discipleship processes I’ve ever seen. Designed by an SBC missionary using insights from the mission field, Masterlife was an impressive combination of methodologies designed to produce disciples with spiritual disciplines, evangelism skills and the ability to begin meaningful discipleship ministries of their own. [Continue reading]

1) I am receiving a considerable stream of material to review that I have not agreed to review. Let me make this very clear: I will not review materials sent to me UNLESS I agree to review them prior to sending the materials to me. If you send me a book or a CD WITHOUT CONTACTING ME FIRST, I will NOT review the material or return it to you. [Continue reading]

Podcast 25. Discussing C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity Part 6: Politics, Sex and Marriage.

The podcast website is Coffee Cup Apologetics.

All the episodes of Coffee Cup Apologetics are now on iTunes. Go to iTunes and search for “Apologetics.” (iTunes is missing some podcasts. You can get them from the web sites.)

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What do you do when God answers your prayers?

I am a fairly consistent reader and user of the Book of Psalms in my devotional life and worship leadership. Along the way, I’ve noticed that many of the Psalms are prayer or report episodes of prayer in the Psalms. In many of these Psalms, the Psalmist talks about the specifics of what he has done or plans to do as a direct result of God answering his prayer.

Without being exhaustive, I did a quick survey of portions of the Psalter that particular gave evidence of the Psalmist taking specific actions as a result of answered prayer. Some of the scriptures- all from Psalms- were:

Psalm 18:49; 22:22,25; 26:1-12; 34:1-11; 35:1-10; 40:1-3,9-10; 51:7-9,12-17; 57:7-9; 66:13-20; 115:12-19.

In these portions of the Psalms, you will read about many responses to answered prayer: Public and private worship, paying vows, making sacrifices, giving public testimony, evangelism, teaching, praise in music and song, continuing prayer, missions. [Continue reading]

UPDATE:: John H at Confessing Evangelical is the first one in the pool. Jeremy Bouma at Novus Lumen joins in as well. Alan Creech comes through with a Catholic Bible.

UPDATE II: Here is the exact Bible I used. (Pictures at the bottom.)

I wonder if any bloggers out there would like to devote a post (and maybe a picture) to a Bible that has a special place in your spiritual journey?

I became a Christian in 1972. The next year, I had the opportunity to take a very unusual class in a public school: Bible as Literature.

Our school was offering options in the English department. You made four choices for the year, from options as varied as creative writing, gothic lit and sci-fi. Seeing an opportunity to bring the Bible into the curriculum, Christians in the English department got two options of Bible as Literature on the menu. [Continue reading]

UPDATE II: Some of you probably haven’t read some of my older essays on worship, found in the “Worship” section on the older essays page.

UPDATE: After having written many posts on evangelical worship and reading hundreds of other posts and comments, it’s no wonder anyone who attends a liturgical church five times in a row concludes evangelicals are so confused on this subject there’s almost no hope for us. What a mess.

It occurred to me today that we’ve come full circle.

When I was a teenager, the Charismatic movement was just getting some traction. Raising hands, emotional expression in worship, Pentecostal expressions….these were all new in many churches that were used to nothing more than the “frozen chosen” type of rationalistic worship.

What did this mean? It meant that if you saw someone with their hands in the air, for example, you could be certain of their sincerity in worship. Here was a person rejecting the dead, expressionless type of worship that was common in Protestantism in favor of the genuine worship responses of the Charismatics. Here was judgment on the typical Baptist complaint that Catholics were just going through the motions. We had simply eliminated the motions altogether. Now, in the Charismatic style, the Spirit was bringing true worship back to the church. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: C. Michael Patton extends the list and the discussion.

Someone asked me what I thought the biggest problems facing evangelicals were, and with as much as I’ve written on the subject, it was still difficult to get a short list.

THE THIRTEEN CRITICAL PROBLEMS FACING CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICALISM

1. Vast evidence of a growing doctrinal deterioration on the essentials and implications of the Gospel.

2. The expansion and influence of the “Prosperity Gospel” throughout evangelicalism.

3. The loss of the concept of meaningful church membership and the rise of the “audience-only” model of church participation.

4. The loss of the theological “center” in mainline churches at the precise time many evangelicals are open to reconsidering the mainline vision of worship, especially in Anglicanism.

5. The triumph and glorification of unchecked pragmatic entrepreneurialism, especially in worship, but in all areas of evangelical life.

6. The corrosive and compromised influence of Christian publishing in shaping evangelicalism, as exemplified in the rise of Joel Osteen, The Prayer of Jabez and the Prosperity Gospel.

7. Growing chaos in the theological and practical preparation of pastors, especially in the “emerging” church.

8. The failure of the “Seeker” model to use its vast resources and influence to produce a Christian counter-culture or challenge the “program centered/facilities centered” model of evangelicalism.

9. The lack of rising “Billy Graham” quality new leaders for the larger evangelical movement.

10. The failure of most evangelical denominations to broadly embrace and effectively mentor the current church planting movement.

11. The demise of quality Biblical preaching at the hands of technology and entertainment.

12. The apparently fatal infection of much of the emerging church movement with the failed theology of 20th century liberalism.

13. The cannibalism of evangelicalism on issues related to theological, cultural, social and political diversity.

I don’t take many opportunities to write extended descriptions of the ministry where I serve. There are several reasons for that. I don’t want to involve my ministry in any of the controversies that might be part of this blog. But I hear people talk about their churches all day long, and I have a lot to say about our ministry as well. So in this piece, I talk a lot about where I live, minister and serve. I hope it’s clear that I am grateful most of all to God for all that I have experienced here.

In the Joel Osteen discussion, a couple of people accused me of being jealous- jealous of Joel Osteen’s success. I want to talk about that accusation.

This morning, our school chapel was visited by a Christian ministry that almost every IM reader knows well, at least by reputation. They visit us once a year, and distribute New Testaments to our students. The gentleman who spoke to our students described this ministry’s distinctive mission and vision: evangelism through Bible distribution. One hundred seventy of our students received the Bible as a gift.

This ministry has over 200,000 members, all laity and all volunteers. In fact, these members make the front line financial sacrifices to fund the ministry’s work, and then go into local churches once a year to ask for support. In our community, they literally go to the back door and stand with an offering plate to receive that support personally. As long as I have been involved with them, they have never called me or mailed me asking for money. [Continue reading]

I ran this post when the link from Ben Witherington first came out. It’s one of the best discussions of the issue with Osteen that I’ve read. Worth rerunning.

God bless Ben Witherington, who takes on the THEOLOGY of Joel Osteen, particularly as it applies to the teaching of Jesus. Thank you, Dr. Witherington, for doing what so few others are willing to do.

American Christianity, if not staying focused on Jesus, gets in big trouble in a culture where entitlement is a tremendous temptation. Paul urged Christians to be “…holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” That’s Jesus. This is in contrast to a kind of spirituality that grows from a person who is “…puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind…” (Colossians 2:18.) That’s a mind that says “whatever feels good is God.”

We need much teaching like Dr. Witherington does in this post: the explicit contrast of the teaching and meaning of Jesus with the errors of this subtle prosperity method. Jesus described “Your Best Life Now,” but it isn’t the Osteen positive thinking message.

UPDATE: Comments are closed. One commenter feels I am a hypocrite for liking Merton and criticizing Osteen. After about five rounds of this, the point has been made and there’s no reason to keep repeating it.

All Osteen. All the time.

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1Timothy 3:1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer* must be above reproach, the husband of one wife,* sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

Did I mention I’m studying I Timothy with some other men? We’ve been going through this paragraph on the qualifications for leadership, and I had a few thoughts.

1. Leadership is about qualifications, but it’s about a lot more than qualifications. I don’t know if all the apostles were married men with children. I don’t know anything about the spiritual condition of their wives, especially in regard to faith in Jesus. I don’t know anything about the spiritual condition of their children. I don’t know how they were perceived in their community. I assume that, when Jesus called them, they were a pretty rough bunch at times, and all were “recent converts.” [Continue reading]