Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, and Pre-Enlightenment Arguments for Religious Liberty
In a fascinating chapter entitled “The Evangelical Encounter with the Enlightenment,” Catherine A. Brekus details early evangelicals’ relationship with Enlightenment principles. To be sure, evangelicals did not imbibe Enlightenment ideas and ideals wholesale. As Brekus explains: On the surface, the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, and evangelicalism, with its heart-centered piety, seem to have stood in stark opposition to...
Another Reason Why Change Is So Hard
Lately I’ve heard of several churches preparing to interview prospective pastors. I often think that I would like to be a fly on the wall of those interview rooms. I’m fiercely curious about the questions that search committees ask prospective hires and the questions these men ask those committees. Much of what is said—and perhaps more of what is left unsaid or unasked—will have profound implications for the church’s ministry for the...
Music and the Culture of Self: A Reflection
Two Recent Experiences Music has long been an integral part of human life. Skillfully wrought pieces encourage us to contemplate the transcendent and the beautiful. However, our cultural experience of music has undergone a significant change, particularly in the last century. Two recent, very different encounters with music have reminded me of this. The first was my attending a recent performance of the Paul Brock Band, one of...
Toward a Clearer Understanding of Biblical Inerrancy
Does the fact that textual variations exist in our biblical manuscripts make you uncomfortable? It certainly made me uncomfortable in a Greek course during my junior year of college when we came across some variant readings in a New Testament passage we were studying. I must have assumed that the manuscripts available to us today were without error and contained no variation. It made me think about how these variations affect the...
Diagnosing Our Individualism(s)
Individualism is not a problem contained to our time. No matter how much we might argue about the “good ol’ days,” the over-emphasis on one’s self is a perennial problem, or even the first problem. In the Garden Adam and Eve decided to place their own individual desires above the commands of One who was external from them, even though that One was their own Creator. In doing so, they reaped the consequences. As a result, we shouldn’t...
2018 Theological Symposium in Review
On October 22-23, the Commission for Theological Integrity held its annual Theological Symposium on the campus of Randall University in Moore, Oklahoma. Over the course of nine presentations, approximately 350 students, pastors, professors, layman, and others reflected on subjects as diverse as the Great Commission, marriage, Christian hymnody, the wisdom literature, the Lord’s Supper, and more. Four Forum members attended, and three...
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