Hypocrisy in the Twitterverse
Hypocrisy is the public display of virtuous actions or thoughts with the ultimate goal of drawing attention to one’s own moral superiority in contradistinction to others. Because it is sin, all peoples struggle at all times with the temptation of hypocrisy. However, the recent proliferation of portable communication devices and social platforms has made this particular vice especially enticing and pernicious. Our pride is stroked by...
The History of Free Will Baptist Histories
If a stranger were to ask you who you are, how would you respond? You might begin with your name and occupation, but you would turn eventually to history. You would begin to explain where you came from and to whom you are connected biologically, intellectually, and spiritually. History tells us who we are, helps us explain ourselves to others, and gives us guidance. Our denominational history serves the same function. With a strong...
The Midwife’s Baptism: Thomas Helwys and Believer’s Baptism
The Free Will Baptist Treatise defines baptism as the “immersion of believers in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”[1] For this reason, Free Will Baptist churches cannot accept candidates for membership who have not received believer’s baptism by immersion. During my years in ministry, people occasionally have asked why we would not accept the infant baptism of someone who had clearly accepted Christ as...
William Jennings Bryan and the Progressive Era
American history is filled with interesting cultural changes and transformations. While we focus rightly most of our attention on the founding era or the War Between the States, other time periods are also important for understanding how the United States came to be what it is today. One such time period is the years between 1880 and 1920, which historians usually refer to as the Progressive Era. This historical moment, which is often...
Economics: Theological Foundations
In his celebrated 1994 work The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, evangelical historian Mark Noll dourly concluded that evangelical’s “intellectual sterility” had produced “virtually no insights into how, under God, the natural world proceeded, how human societies worked, why human nature acted the way it did, or what constituted the blessings and perils of culture.”[1] While I have written elsewhere that Noll’s thesis exaggerates the...
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