Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Cross and Community
Until I was eighteen-years-old, I held dual citizenship in two countries. The first was in the United States, where my father was born, and me; the second, Germany, where my mother was born. It was a unique experience growing up in a cross-cultural home. I would antagonize my mother with questions about life in Germany: “What’s the word for this? Do they have words for that? Does everyone wear funny overalls over there?” (I’ve since...
Godliness and Government
We live in strange times.[1] With each passing year, America’s laws and leaders move further from the Judeo-Christian tradition as their moral compass. Roe v. Wade (1973) stands in infamy for declaring a woman’s legal right to an abortion. Last year, United States v. Windsor (2013) struck down the Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as the legal union between one man and one woman. Similar examples litter our landscape....
Does God Want Us to Fight about Worship?
Discussions about worship have produced more division among Protestant churches than anything else in the last 25 years.[1] Disagreements have mostly focused on musical questions, though the issues are broader, too. The debate has now reached a stalemate because worshippers have learned that if they don’t like their church’s services, there is always another service down the street. Such options reveal that the “worship wars” produced...
Sowing & Reaping: Previewing the Free Will Baptist National Convention
Between July 27 and 30, thousands of Free Will Baptists will converge on Forth Worth, Texas for their annual National Convention. This will mark the 78th time they have assembled for such an occasion. In many respects this meeting will be like previous meetings: reports will be given, elections held, resolutions brought forward, budgets passed, seminars provided, worship services conducted, and more. At the same time, this Convention...
Thomas Monck: A Cure for the Cankering Error of the New Eutychians
As a young man, when my Sunday School teacher or pastor began talking about how God would use my spiritual gifts for His glory, I would say to myself, “I’m just an Average Joe.” After all, I was raised in a rural Tennessee community of tobacco farmers. I am descended from north Alabama and South Carolina carpenters, share croppers, and itinerant pastors. And though both of my parents are very intelligent, they’re just regular folks....
Thomas Grantham: Christianismus Primitivus
Thomas Grantham lived in an age when kings were beheaded, national church structures were dissolved, and Baptists were regularly imprisoned. Grantham was a prolific theologian, a farmer, and a tender shepherd of souls. He staunchly defended Baptist beliefs and heralded universal religious freedom. Thomas Grantham (1633/34-1692) was born in Hatton, England, a region near Lincolnshire. Like many seventeenth-century figures, his early...
Recent Comments