Top 7 Theological/Christian Books I Read in 2011
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
2. Tedd Tripp, Shepherding a Child’s Heart
3. Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus
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Do you expect your kids to go to church 2-3 times per week? Do you want to know when “same sex” books are being taught in elementary school?
Think you have a right to parent your children the way you would like? See this short documentary, showing 3 cases where parents thought they had a protected right. But as it turns out, they did not.
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A common attack against the Bible is to say it was all a conspiracy. That a secret council, or the Emperor Constantine, basically made up the Bible.
Popularly this is promoted in the book and movie The Da Vinci Code”. On a scholarly level, one of the biggest proponents of this type of revisionist history is Bart Ehrman.
But is this claim true? How do we as Christians answer it? Dr. Ed Gravely explains:
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In January of this year, Peter and Hazelmary Bull (a Christian couple) were ordered by to pay damages because they had refused to rent a room to a homosexual couple in their seaside inn. A taxpayer run organization even funded the gay couples court case. The judge said, “social attitudes in Britain had changed”.
But many American Christians expected as much, since Europe has been trending toward more liberalized governments.
Then in March, again in the UK, a Christian couple was banned from foster parenting because when asked by a social worker what their views on homosexuality were, they answered that it was “‘against God’s law and morals”. No matter that they had already fostered 15 children previously.
More recently, the police in Lancashire, UK, told a Christian cafe owner he could no longer display Bible verses inside his own establishment. This order came after a complaint of “insulting” and “homophobic” material being displayed there.
“He says the officers told him that displaying offensive or insulting words is a breach of Section 5 of the Public Order Act, and told him to stop displaying the Bible. The Bible texts are displayed on a TV screen at the back of the café. Mr Murray uses a set of DVDs called the Watchword Bible. The DVDs cycle through the whole of the New Testament verse by verse, with the words appearing on the screen. Mr Murray mutes the audio.”
This sort of thing couldn’t happen in the United States could it?
Yes. It already has. See, Couple Sues a Vermont Inn for Rejecting Gay Wedding
“This is a discrimination case,” he said. “It would be no different if you owned a store and said we don’t want to sell clothes to you or give you food or any other public accommodation.”
Wow, to think you can’t decide as a business owner what your morals are. I’m sure glad we have someone out there to tell us what to do in our own businesses!
And here’s another case, right here in the good ole’ USA:
This type of thing has already begun to get some attention in the more conservative media. Maggie Gallagher at National Review had a good writeup on how it’s affecting us as a people. She writes,
“I just returned from interviewing a Toronto sportscaster who was fired for tweeting that he believed “in the true and authentic meaning of marriage.” Next week, I will go to North Carolina to interview another man whose contract was terminated when the HR head of his company found out he had written against gay marriage. “
What’s next you ask?
Simple. Get the children to accept all of this as normal, then there war is over. Adolf Hitler knew all about this:
“When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side.’ I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already…What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.” - (Adolph Hitler) Speech November 1933, quoted in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
California leads the way: California lawmakers pass bill to teach gay history.
“It’s unfair to leave out or exclude an entire portion of our population from history,” said Carolyn Laub, executive director of San Francisco-based Gay-Straight Alliance
The only solution to the problem our nation finds itself in is to pray for a revival of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our land. God is the only one that can change this course we are headed on. Pray hard and pray daily for truth to be proclaimed and accepted.
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When I first became a Christian, I would often get into arguments with other believers about evolution, the age of the earth, and the historicity of Adam and Eve. Often the discussion would end with something like, “Why are we arguing about evolution and creation, shouldn’t we just focus on telling people about the gospel?”
It wasn’t until later that I realized the creation account is foundational to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The creation account tells us why we have a duty to worship our Creator, where sin came from and why we are responsible, and God’s promise to crush the serpent’s head.
Now, just 10 years later, many churches think this issue is so important they’re including their views in their Statement of Beliefs or Doctrinal Statements. The reason for this is that we now have a large group of professing Christians stretching the meaning of Genesis 1-3 and even worse, outright questioning if the Biblical account is true.
In the June issue of Christianity Today, Richard Osling has given a broad overview of the current thinking in his article Search for the Historical Adam.
Two quotes that I think unfortunately summarize where the theological momentum in the American Church is heading:
“Adam never existed, and this fact has no impact whatsoever on the foundational beliefs of Christianity” and “the church must be willing to “decouple original sin from the notion that all humans descended from a single pair.”"
What will the theological landscape of Protestantism look like in 10 more years?
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Much has already been said in the Christian blogosphere about the death of mass-murderer Osama Bin Laden (OBL). Many commenters have objected that it was not right for the U.S. to kill OBL. The two biggest objections come in the form of quoting Ezekiel 18:23 or arguing that since we are all sinners before God, who are we to punish anyone.
Here’s a quick round up of the best articles currently on the issue from a theological perspective. Read them and decide for yourself if we should rejoice in Bin Laden’s death or not.
Osama Bin Laden and the Value of Justice
Kevin De Young deal with the idea of moral equivalency (that all sins are equal) when he says, “It is one of the half-truths of our day that every sin is the same in God’s eyes…Some sins so destroy the image of God that those who commit them deserve destruction.”
Is God Glad Osama Bin Laden’s Dead?
As always, John Piper has wide words on the subject, “My suggestion is that the death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself not a pleasure to God. God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. The death and suffering considered for itself alone is not his delight. Rather, when a rebellious, wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God has pleasure in is the exaltation of truth and righteousness, and the vindication of his own honor and glory.”
Do Your Soul Some Good
Doug Wilson agrees with the above, but also says we must have proportion: “The ghouls who run the abortion industry, and their shills in the halls of Congress, kill more Americans every day than bin Laden did in his one major flame-out, and the Navy Seals aren’t coming after them.”
The Trial that Still Must Come — The Death of Osama bin Laden and the Limits of Human Justice
Al Mohler reminds us that OBL will have a much higher authority to answer to: “Christians know that Osama bin Laden escaped the reach of full human justice and a trial for his crimes, but he will not escape the judgment that is to come. Bin Laden will not escape his trial before the court of God. Until then, sober satisfaction must be enough for those still in the land of the living.”
HT: Justin Taylor
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“According to NBC news, between 6 and 12 million people are part of the “home church” movement in America. Is this a positive sign or a distressing sign of more apostasy away from the historical church?” Kevin Swanson discusses the issues involved with the home churches. He also touches on an important question regarding the ordinances of communion and baptism in the home.
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I am a follower of Jesus Christ, father of 5, husband to an amazing wife, Dr. of chiropractic, owner of a marketing company serving other doctors, and currently studying for my MTS at Reformed Baptist Seminary in my (somewhat limited) free time! I serve and worship at Kerrville Bible Church
