Assessing the Arts
Essay by Alexandra Harper with W. Jackson Watts Walking through an art gallery can be an intimidating experience. It is not due to a distaste for art that this feeling necessarily arises, but because we simply don’t understand it. For one, art education sits so low on our society’s totem pole of educational priorities. When school budgets are cut, art and music are often the first areas eliminated. Yet for Christians today the issue...
Accounting for Accountability
The Baptist church has quite a problem: We are losing churched young adults at an alarming rate to the growing ranks of the un-churched. [In comparison] to older adults, twentysomethings have significantly lower levels of church attendance, time spent alone studying and reading the Bible, volunteering to help churches, donations to churches, Sunday school and small group involvement, and use of Christian media (including television,...
The Scandal of Singleness
Sometimes others know us better than we know ourselves. Though the world sees through a darkened lens, occasionally it observes something in Christians worth considering. Recently, a New York Times has done just that in exploring the bias in evangelicalism against hiring unmarried pastors [1]. Erik Eckholm recounts the case of one experienced pastor unable to find work after searching since 2009. According to Eckholm, most evangelical...
Reclaiming the Supper: A Reappraisal of the Memorialist View
Eating is an important aspect within the life of the Christian Church. In the Book of Acts, it is recorded that Christians devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship of believers, to prayer, and to the breaking of bread (2:42). Church history also records Christians participating in Agape (love) feasts, which served as communal or fellowship meals that accompanied the partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Even today,...
Who Are We Really Defending?
Reading Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker at the age of 18 left quite an impact on me. It was repulsive to read a book that blasphemed God on every page. Yet because his atheistic beliefs were (and are still) so prominent, I believed it important to understand his arguments. And as a result, I began studying Scripture more diligently in order to combat his false teachings. The radical teachings of Richard Dawkins are not entirely...
Why Are We So Worried About Church Growth?
In my last article I attempted to answer the following question, “Whose responsibility is church growth?” I answered this question by concluding that this responsibility lies ultimately with God rather than men. I then made several suggestions as to how we might return to this perspective. Still this general discussion gives rise to many other questions, perhaps the most pronounced being, “Why are we so worried about church growth...
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