Linkathon!
A week in the life of an average pastor…
Was George Whitefield a Christian?
Franklin Graham calls for day of prayer against Trumps enemies…
Why Jesus couldn’t do miracles in his hometown…
Only half of SBC kids stay in the SBC…
When abortion suddenly stopped making sense…
When the brain betrays the body…
The role of the body when healing after trauma…
Your pastors mental health matters too…
Five reasons you shouldn’t give up on the church…
Rethinking the history of religious freedom…
Thanks as always to Eric L for the link help…support him at top right…
Jared Wilson has done it. He gave us an evangelical version of destroying public icons and statues. He wonders aloud whether or not Whitefield was saved because of his unrepentant sin of chattel slavery. Of course he ends by personalizing his confession of the likelihood that he might die with unrepentant sin.
Our Father …deliver us from each other.
He’s catching holy hell for that piece…
Concerning abortion people change the subject when I raise it. There is only one subject. If an unborn child is a human life there can be no doubt that the state has a compelling interest to save that life. No other issue trumps that call.
In NYC more black babies are aborted than are born. In the same city late term abortions outnumber gun violence murder by more than 3 to 1.
BD,
Is there a place for nuance in this discussion?
Are there exceptions to the rule?
I think a wholesale prohibition on will create a bloodbath of black market abortions…the law only accomplishes so much.
We need to address the issues behind the holocaust if there is to be true reform.
Wilson raises the issue of our ability to be blind to evil. You can go through history and find it. That kind of blindness is not the territory of any particular faith, unfaith, race, politic, nation or any other variable. When we tell ourselves that evil is good we build legacies of shame. Evangelicalism has been skewered on this liberals and progressives will have their day on the spit.
The prophetic role to speak to evil will not abate. We must do it to ourselves and our adversaries.
Wilson should have raised the issue of corporate blindness not personal redemption.
History moves like a great river, I just crossed my beloved Mississippi and saw its overflowing banks. We are all tossed into the river and we must decide how to swim. No generation has the moral ability to look at another and condemn having not felt the current.
By Wilson’s judgment we are back to a remnant theology of very few who can be saved. Oh Jerusalem…
BD,
I think both sides of the political aisle will look back on this era with disgust…
Pastor Dread @ 2:07. worth thinking on…. Pondrring… .?
Michael @ 2:09. Amen !
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/vicar-quits-over-transgenderism-policy-at-church-of-england-school/132509.htm?fbclid=IwAR09J35c3JRYhjT1jsb0pf3SJy7HHtYqyLcyKN2Elq3Hs3peTBwaZA-LeNo
I fully support this vicar…
Michael,
As per above and exceptions — I have always felt that we have little choice other than to show kindness and mercy in extreme circumstances. What we haven’t demonstrated is our faithful ability to define those without broadening the holes in the nets to epic proportions.
The principle of when life begins makes compromise hard. The realities make it necessary. I would compromise. I have never forgotten two women. The first was a woman in my church who told me her terrible story of cancer diagnosis and her husband’s decision (with her consent) to end the pregnancy. She already had two and her fast growing cancer was a death sentence. She aborted and is alive and well today overseeing grandchildren. I acted apostolic and pronounced her forgiven. No regrets.
The second was a girl at revival school who decided to carry her first child to full term despite her cancer. She was lauded as ‘revivalist of the year’ at graduation for her zeal and faith. One year later when another graduation class cycled, her baby had been born and she had died. I lauded and still do her faith but would not have condemned otherwise.
So for me life and death issues are real and must be considered. We are not inquisitors. Science has pushed the abortion issue into territory that is making it look increasingly vile. That voice too must be answered and will be.
BD,
Well said…thank you.
Article on fiction was helpful. Five reasons not to give up on the Church–pretty tame. It confuses criticism with cynicism, in my view, and generalisms overpower more specific issues. Good discussion on the abortion article–I haven’t read it yet.
Michael,
Re: your concern about nuance and your fear of wholesale black market abortions
I think it is the state’s job to protect all life.
Abortion is a high place. No matter the behavior that brought the little life forward, God had a hand in its creation because Life is good, and God is the giver of life.
So, when you look at a baby near its term, and decide that it’s value is less because a disgusting man raped a woman; that the child, in our estimation, will likely be killed or imprisoned, or kill someone else
And we decide it’s devoid of value based on assumption or pity for it or the mother,
Then we are worshiping at a high place and encouraging mothers to as well.
If you can look at a child of rape, hold its head in the vaginal canal, and decide it’s skull should be crushed because it has no value, can you, who could hardly kill a cat, take the woman to the clinic and sit by while this happens? I don’t think you think there’s any sunstantial nuance.
Obviously, I don’t think there is much nuance. Maybe in less than 1% of cases and medical necessity. Like you.
Speaking of leaders we slay on the issue, according to the Holy Spirit,
“11Asa did what was right in the sight of the LORD, like David his father…
14But the high places were not taken away; nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly devoted to the LORDĀ all his days.”
So I think rulers and magistrates can be righteous in the vein of Lot, being hamstrung by politics or ability, while the people are wholly responsible for their own decisions as well.
I agree there would be a black market abortion created, but it has the effect of ferreting out the determined women who will not be convinced otherwise from the questioning or frightened or naiive. Besides that, a state like Alabama is bordered by states with federally funded Planned Parenthoods and virtually zero limits on patient accountability.
I think you missed Wilson’s point. And I thought his article was great. He did not condemn Whitefield…he pointed out that God’s grace really IS that good.
https://twitter.com/jaredcwilson/status/1132996065073029121
Go ahead and read the comments on the original tweet announcing Jared Wilson’s article. You have:
* a civilized discussion on the topic of reparations
* white people demanding Wilson do a similar article on Martin Luther King Jr. to balance things up
* one white person insinuating MLK wasn’t saved
* another guy dissing the article by arguing that in 250 years, people will judge Wilson for using items made by sweatshop workers (as if the poster gave a **** about sweatshop workers)
* people praising Wilson for his article
* people skewering Wilson for his article — and a bunch of them are doing so for the wrong reasons
* and, of course, somebody’s mandatory Jesus Juke (you’ll know it when you see it)
Twitter, folks.
Re Jared (nice name)
Again, King Asa. Someone said you could write a similar piece on OT characters, like Lot, except that the Holy Spirit, through Peter, states his righteousness plainly.
Oppenheimer was not the destroyer of worlds – our mouths are.
“So also the tongue is a small part of the body, andĀ yetĀ it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!”
Immediately I am reminded of the Spirit of anti-christ. In the end the embodiment of that spirit is a big mouth.
BrianD,
Twitter has a very long range between priceless and pathetic.
It’s still my main area of social media..
Jerod,
“I think it is the stateās job to protect all life.”
Then you’ll join me protesting the states culture of death on the border?
Here’s the deal…pastoral ministry is not writing a position paper or a blog article.
It’s dealing with real people in real crises who have made bad decisions and have broken lives.
I agree in principle with much you said…but I will leave room for nuance and humanity in how I process it and those it affects…
Five reasons to not give up on the church…
Christ loves the church
Christ gave himself up for the church
Christ washes the church with water and the word
Christ intends to present the church gloriously without spot or wrinkle
Christ cherishes the church as his own body – his own dwelling place
Relevant Dread
Regarding Franklin Graham…
A court evangelical and all around Trump “sphere cleaner” should be reminded of Matthew 5:43 to Matthew 5:48.
Dread’s five were superior.
More and more, Michael, yes. I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything absolutely contrary
I won’t go so far as to say the men and women of ICE are neglecting children unto death,
But being pro-life means deeper thought about all issues related to preservation of it. I strike you otherwise?
Dread
Can I be a part of the church outside the typical gathering places?
“[Pastoral Ministry is] dealing with real people in real crises who have made bad decisions and have broken lives.”
Yep, Grace is awful to behold, humbling to accept, and maddening to the lot of us looking on at those who don’t “deserve” it. I think the disciples felt the same way.
Christ’s forgiveness is broadly available, yet deeper than any woman who’s had an abortion could ever imagine.
Jerod,
The only thing you cannot do is be solo. You must be connected to a body wherein there is some skin in the game. There must be some familial connectedness that causes us to belong.
Church is not a form, not where you go, not an institution though it can have all those characteristics. Church is the dwelling of God with us, in us, upon us, through us.
In regards to Franklin.
I cringe when he refers to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as the generic āGodā. The god if the self entitled who want to join Franklin in this cultural āevangelicalā perversion of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
While referring to God in this generic fashion and making no reference to the Lordship of Jesus Christ,
Franklin specifically names Donald Trump and make reference to His office.
This is nothing but a Pharisaical look at me prayer performed on a platform for the world to see and a desperate grab for a satanicallly inspired grab for power tempting the Bride if Christ to prostitute herself rather than prepare herself in the white garments of the simple but substantial good works preoared for us to walk in. In the midst of this Babylon calling event, I here the tender but intrntional voice of the Spirit calling His people to come out and unto Him.
Vic,
Well said!