Hispanics Leaving Catholicism, Becoming Either Evangelicals or Religiously Unaffiliated

The Story: Religious polarization is taking place in the Hispanic community, with the shrinking majority of Hispanic Catholics holding the middle ground between two growing groups (evangelical Protestants and the unaffiliated) that are at opposite ends of the U.S. religious spectrum, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. 

 

The Background:

 

According to Pew, the long-term decline in the share of Catholics among Hispanics may partly reflect religious changes underway in Latin America, where evangelical churches have been gaining adherents and the share of those with no religious affiliation has been slowly rising in a region that historically has been overwhelmingly Catholic. 

Hispanics leaving Catholicism have tended to move in two directions. Some have become born-again or evangelical. On average, Hispanic evangelicals - many of whom also identify as either Pentecostal or charismatic Protestants - not only report higher rates of church attendance than Hispanic Catholics but also tend to be more engaged in other religious activities, including Scripture reading, Bible study groups and sharing their faith.    Continue at Joe Carter

Mark Driscoll’s Problems, and Ours

The recent revelation that Mars Hill Church in Seattle paid an outside company to boost sales of its pastor’s books has raised questions not simply about personal integrity but also about the very culture of American Evangelicalism.

As an English Presbyterian living in the States, I am never quite sure about whether I am an “Evangelical” by American standards. Back home, I am Evangelical without question, but here it is more complicated. I certainly hold to a traditional, orthodox Protestant faith with a strong existential twist. But American Evangelicalism is more (and sometimes much less) than that. The political commitments of the movement are, on the whole, a mystery to me. And, while the celebrity leadership of the movement is comprehensible to me in sociological terms, I find it distasteful and arguably unbiblical. It too often seems to represent exactly what Paul was criticizing in 1 Corinthians 1.   Continue at Carl Trueman

5 Differences Between Catholic Theology and the Gospel

With Reformation Day this week, it is a good time to remind ourselves of what exactly the differences are between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants. Certainly on just about every single area of theology there are differences, but here are what I think are the five most glaring and significant issues that separate the Catholic Church from the gospel of grace:  

1) Justification

Evangelicals teach that sinners are justified on the basis of faith alone, and that ones’ faith is placed in the finished substitutionary work of Jesus on the cross, confirmed by his glorious resurrection, and that this is a gift based entirely on his grace. Finally, that justification is complete and total at the moment of our conversion, and that believers never grow more justified.

In contrast the Catholic church teaches that justification is a process that includes works (with those works “infusing” one’s faith), and that those works are the cause of the justification process. Beyond that, the Catholic Church teaches:

“If anyone says, that by faith alone the impious is justified; let him be anathema” (Council of Trent #9)    Continue at Jesse Johnson

Sham Unity is Not Worth Working For

A couple years back, while at a big leadership conference for church leaders, I was listening to a statistician discussing the state of the church in Canada. He explained that he believes Roman Catholics and Protestants need to come together if we’re going to find any success in turning Canadians back toward Christ. After all, he said, the more discussions he had with Catholics, mainline Protestants and Evangelicals, the more he found we had in common (which, basically amounted to “all of them pray and take their faith seriously”).

Sitting in this session, I was kind of annoyed, and more than a little depressed. I mean, seriously? This is the best advice that could be offered to church leaders wanting to impact their communities? Hook up your carts to the United Church and Mainline Presbyterianism (both of which are haemorrhaging members) and bury the hatchet with the Roman church?

Sadly, this is the same advice that’s been given to Evangelicals for decades—dating back to the 1940s and earlier. J.I. Packer addresses how we should respond to this sort of thinking well in his 1958 release, “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God. He writes:   Continue at Aaron Armgstrong

Funerals from Hell - Where Have All the Graveyards Gone?

I've concluded that the typical evangelical funeral can go quite a ways to making a person an atheist. I've also concluded that the church needs to reclaim the fundamental truth that Christianity is primarily for dying. Not primarily for living, but for dying; and because it is primarily about preparing to die, it has something profound to offer about living. Funerals need to rediscover death and thus once again have something to say to the living.

Before looking at the causes of the death of the funeral, a true confession about a funeral--oops, sorry, a celebration of life--I recently attended. (I am just getting out of theological therapy from the experience.)

My rescue came from the Christian funeral and burial of my mother, who died on Epiphany. All I can say is thanks be to God for a Christ-centered burial liturgy, for a graveside service providing the godly focus on the death of death, and for a faithful pastor bringing Jesus in his forgiving and saving office to all present.

A Fun-eral from Hell

 

"Bob" was a prominent evangelical businessman. He surfed. He married. He procreated. He made barn loads of money. And so the assembly was treated to body-length photos of Bob the Action Figure. Of course, this celebration lacked a few things that definitely would be a downer at any celebration--distractions like a dead body or that troubling casket. Come to think of it, the words "dying," "dead," or "death" were real no-nos during the whole celebration, which was led by a man whom my wife refers to now as simply "Mr. Happy Pastor."

Happy Pastor is one of those cool, laid-back, California surfer-dude, Hawaiian-shirted, Plexiglas pulpit, megachurch guys who is well prepared to be a personal assistant to a Hollywood celebrity or to work in a hip music studio as the sound board operator. He has the spiritual gifts of being funny, relevant, and cool. He just was not into bringing the pure gospel of grace and forgiveness of sins in Jesus. He worked relentlessly hard that morning to eliminate any confrontation with the deadly duo of sin and death. Into that vacuum, he put Bob's really cool life and a really cool celebration.   Continue at Craig A. Parton

Is the Pretribulation Rapture Biblical?

One of the most popular teachings today in Evangelical and Charismatic churches is the doctrine of the pretribulation rapture. The pretribulation rapture teaching is that there are two separate comings of Christ. The first coming is secret and occurs before the future seven year tribulation. At this coming Jesus comes for the saints (i.e., all genuine believers) both living and dead. These saints meet the Lord in the air and then are taken to heaven to escape the horrible judgments that take place during the seven year tribulation. At the end of the great tribulation Jesus returns to the earth with the saints. This coming is not secret but is observed by all. At this coming Christ crushes His opposition, judges mankind and sets up a one thousand year reign of saints upon the earth (the millennium). Some pretribulation advocates speak of two separate comings while others prefer to speak of one coming in two separate stages or phases (phase one is the secret rapture and phase two is the visible coming in judgment). Hal Lindsey likes to refer to the rapture as “the great snatch.” He writes: “The word for ‘caught up’ actually means to ‘snatch up,’ and that’s why I like to call this marvelous coming event ‘The Great Snatch’! It’s usually referred to as the ‘Rapture,’ from the Latin word rapere, which means to ‘take away’ or ‘snatch out.’”  Continue at Brian Schwertley

How Denominations Come to Tolerate, Accept, and then Endorse Homosexuality

Tom Oden, writing in his book Requiem way back in 1995, explains how it happens.

The first step is always a study committee.

In response to claims for moral legitimization of behaviors widely thought displeasing to God, each of the mainline denominations has dutifully appointed elaborate study commissions to report back to the general legislative body on how the church might respond to this form of sexual orientation, practice, and advocacy. (152)

If the first study committee comes back with a traditional reading of the text, or if the legislative body dismisses the committee’s progressive interpretation, you can always assign another study committee amidst outcries that the recalcitrant conservatives suffer from “homophobia and reactionary stupidity” (153).

And if the traditional view cannot be overturned right away, try dismissing the whole controversy by telling people (with no small amount of chronological snobbery) that saner Christians understand this is nothing worth fighting over.

The fact that homosexual practice is not a weighty moral matter was asserted by the United Methodist Sexuality Report as a “consensus among Christian ethicists,” yet without any evidence to support this curious assertion. All the conspicuous Christian teachers who have resisted same-sex intercourse (John Chrysostom, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other consensual ecumenical teachers) are weighed in the debate less heavily than selected modern proponents of moral relativism and utilitarian permissivism. (153)    Continue at Kevin DeYoung

What is the Greatest of All Protestant “Heresies”?

Let us begin with a church history exam question. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) was a figure not to be taken lightly. He was Pope Clement VIII’s personal theologian and one of the most able figures in the Counter-Reformation movement within sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism. On one occasion, he wrote: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is _______ .” Complete, explain, and discuss Bellarmine’s statement.

How would you answer? What is the greatest of all Protestant heresies? Perhaps justification by faith? Perhaps Scripture alone, or one of the other Reformation watchwords?

Those answers make logical sense. But none of them completes Bellarmine’s sentence. What he wrote was: “The greatest of all Protestant heresies is assurance.”

A moment’s reflection explains why. If justification is not by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone — if faith needs to be completed by works; if Christ’s work is somehow repeated; if grace is not free and sovereign, then something always needs to be done, to be “added” for final justification to be ours. That is exactly the problem. If final justification is dependent on something we have to complete it is not possible to enjoy assurance of salvation. For then, theologically, final justification is contingent and uncertain, and it is impossible for anyone (apart from special revelation, Rome conceded) to be sure of salvation. But if Christ has done everything, if justification is by grace, without contributory works; it is received by faith’s empty hands — then assurance, even “full assurance” is possible for every believer.   Continue at Sinclair Ferguson

Evangelicals and the Homosexual Revolution

Albert Mohler’s article for The Washington Post is a must-read. It’s a sobering reflection on where evangelicals stand within a culture that has turned against a biblical view of human sexuality. He writes: 

 

Evangelicals cannot join the moral revolution on homosexuality, but it seems unlikely that we can stop it, either. The issue of homosexuality, by itself and in tandem with other moral issues, may well lead to the marginalization of evangelical Christians within the larger society. This is already the case in secular Europe and, increasingly, in Great Britain and Canada as well. Churches and other groups that cannot accept the full normalization of same-sex relationships will find themselves driven further and further from the cultural mainstream.

This is going to be particularly difficult for America’s evangelical Christians. We are accustomed to standing within the political and cultural mainstream, comfortable in an America that shared much of our moral worldview. Those days are over.     Continue at Denny Burk

What Does “Evangelical” Really Mean?

Can we trust the word evangelical anymore? It doesn’t look like it. In a recent article from The Independent, a UK newspaper and news website, Reverend Steve Chalke was heralded as a “prominent evangelical pastor” who has said that he now supports “monogamous same-sex relationships.” (You can read the full article at this link.)

Now, often when we read the word evangelical in reference to believers, we think of theologically conservative Christians who uphold the authority of God’s Word. But Steve Chalke is not upholding the authority of God’s Word, at least not in reference to homosexual behavior.

In fact, Chalke also denies the doctrine of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement. You see, this doctrine teaches that because of Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden, all were made sinners (Romans 5:19). Furthermore, Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Since God is holy and just, He must punish sin, but instead of punishing us, He punished His Son, who served as our perfect substitute.

So, how can we be spared God’s judgment for sin? Well, that’s the key to substitutionary atonement. Scripture tells us that Christ was “wounded for our transgressions” and was “bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). God came to earth in the form of the God-man Jesus Christ, lived a perfect life, died, and rose again three days later … to save all those who would believe! Romans 1:16 tells us that the gospel of Christ “is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”   Continue at Ken Ham

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So…is Mormonism a cult or what?

A few months ago Franklin Graham found himself in all sort of evangelical hot water when he removed a page from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s website that had labeled Mormonism as a cult. The timing of the removal—a few weeks before the presidential election and a few minutes after Billy Graham gave his presidential imprimatur to Romney—made any nuanced reasoning behind the Graham’s move impossible.

They compounded their problems when their defense of the action was “God has not called us to call other people names”—a defense which is about as thoughtful and persuasive as saying “Mormons really are nice people after all.” As Dan Phillips  over at Pyromanics pointed out, how can you possibly argue with someone when they say that God has not called them to do what you think they should be doing? Doesn’t that mean you are arguing with God? Who, exactly, do you think you are?

But there remains an obvious question that bears exploring: Is Mormonism a cult? I want to put forward a nuanced answer: it depends on what you mean by Mormons, and it depends on what you mean by cult.  

First the cult part:

 

I read dozens of blogs skewering the Grahams for their defrocking Mormonism of its cult status, but I don’t remember seeing anyone lay out what exactly it means to be a cult. Certainly there are several definitions of cult. What are they, and how does one qualify?   Continue at Jesse Johnson

Joseph of Nazareth Meets Planned Parenthood

A few years ago the Planned Parenthood Federation of America got my attention by pioneering a Christmas card. The group sent a holiday greeting — complete with sentimental snowflakes and stars — with the caption “Choice on Earth.”

Evangelicals and Roman Catholics rightly noted the incongruity of the nation’s largest abortion provider using an ancient Christian holiday to promote abortion rights. The give-and-take over this card was a quick controversy, forgotten once all the wrapping paper and tinsel were put away for the season.

But the card made me think of Joseph, and how this obscure Middle Eastern laborer could show 21st-century Christians how to celebrate Christmas in a culture of death?

For too long, Christians have concentrated almost exclusively on what we do not believe about Joseph.

We rightly insist that he was not the birth-father of Jesus. Mary, a virgin, conceived the Messiah through the power of the Holy Spirit, with no biological contribution from a man (Luke 1:34-35). And yet, there is so much more that Scripture has to say about Joseph.  Continue at Russell D. Moore

Amateurs All? Christians and Bible Reading

Most American Protestants, whether liberal or evangelical, are egalitarians when it comes to the reading and study of Scripture. They tend to be committed to the American proposition that "all men"-and women-"are created equal" not simply because they are patriotic or democratic but also because their doctrine of Scripture drives them to it. The logic runs like this: Because the Bible is clear, anyone who can read its words should be able to understand its meaning, no matter what the reader's education or social status. This egalitarianism has produced some laudable results. For example, it keeps ordinary Christians reading the Scriptures so that they, like Timothy, may thus be made "wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15). Individual Scriptural reading is also one of the means by which God instructs and encourages Christians and thus gives them hope (see Rom. 15:4). Moreover, we, like the Bereans, surely are to be commended when we turn to the Scriptures to check whether what is being preached to us is true (see Acts 17:11). Yet Protestant egalitarianism is also, at the same time, the source of significant errors. One of these errors involves egalitarianism's failure to recognize that not everything in Scripture is easy to understand and so we need those people who are especially well-trained in the Scriptures to help us avoid twisting them in harmful ways (see 2 Pet. 3:16). The fact is that some people are better equipped to interpret the Bible than others-and so their interpretations, everything else being equal, are to be preferred over the interpretations of the average Peter, Paul, or Mary.

The egalitarian error is illustrated by the ethic of those small-group Bible studies where everyone's insight carries equal weight. But a better example comes from a more prominent corner of the Protestant world where this kind of egalitarianism collides with the hierarchies that most Americans use to negotiate modern life. The phrase "the integration of faith and learning" is a constant source of inspiration and self-examination at many Christian colleges. Administrators stress its importance as a way of attracting new students who, it is promised, upon graduation will be able to think Christianly about themselves and the world. Christian college faculty are required to integrate their own faith and learning in order to get tenure and promotion. Students are also expected to show the influence of these endeavors in their papers and exams. Continue at D. G. Hart

The Problem of Evangelical Biblical Illiteracy A View from the Classroom

Satan's use of Scripture in tempting Jesus is clear indication that a merely cognitive level of biblical literacy does not automatically result in the formation of a Christian character.

 

For well over twenty years now, Christian leaders have been lamenting the loss of general biblical literacy in America. No doubt you have read some of the same dire statistics that I have. Study after study demonstrates how nearly everyone in our land owns a Bible (more than one, in fact) but few ever take the time to read it, much less study it closely. Indeed, while the Exploring Religious America Survey of 2002 reports that over 84 percent of Americans consider the Bible to be "very" or "somewhat important" in helping them make decisions in life, recent Gallup polls tell us that only half can name even one of the four Gospels, only a third are able to identify the individual who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and most aren't even able to identify Genesis as the Bible's opening text. 

Upon hearing these figures (and many more are readily available), some among us may be tempted to seek odd solace in the recognition that our culture is increasingly post-Christian. Perhaps these general population studies are misplaced in holding secular people to Christian standards. Much to our embarrassment, however, it has become increasingly clear that the situation is really no better among confessing Christians, even those who claim to hold the Bible in high regard. Again, numerous studies are available for those seeking further reason to be depressed. In a 2004 Gallup study of over one thousand American teens, nearly 60 percent of those who self-identified as evangelical were not able to correctly identify Cain as the one who said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and over half could not identify either "Blessed are the poor in spirit" as a quote from the Sermon on the Mount or "the road to Damascus" as the place where Saul/Paul's blinding vision occurred. In each of these questions, evangelical teens fared only slightly better than their non-evangelical counterparts.  Continue at David R. Nienhuis

You're a Calvinist, Right?

I've been reading Fred Sanders's blog for a long time, and when his book, The Deep Things of God, came out, I was eager to read it. He's a good writer, he loves and quotes the Puritans, he's a reasonable thinker, and he knows how to do careful exegesis.

He's also a Wesleyan.

I don't mean to declare that so menacingly. But the first time I learned Sanders---associate professor at the Torrey Honors Institute of Biola University---was a Wesleyan, I was a bit surprised. It's not that Wesleyans and Arminians can't be careful interpreters and reasonable thinkers---I just don't often resonate with their writings and conclusions quite the way I do with Sanders'.

And so, I had to know: For a guy who loves, quotes, and depends upon Calvin and Calvinists, why isn't Fred Sanders a Calvinist? We corresponded, and he explained the one thing he wished Calvinists would stop accusing Wesleyans of doing and why Wesleyanism is only the opposite of Calvinism in a very small thought-world.

A good many Calvinists grew up in the Reformed tradition, but many of us became Calvinists later in life, when we had to make our faith our own and make sense of what the Bible says for ourselves. How did you become a Wesleyan? What about the tradition attracts you?

I grew up as a free-range evangelical, in pentecostal and baptistic churches of various kinds. But I actually got saved as a teenager when a revival broke out in the youth group at the local United Methodist church. I got an MDiv at Asbury Theological Seminary, a great interdenominational school with definite Methodist roots. So my conversion and my early theological training were in Wesley territory.   Continue at John Starke

Which Church Would the Reformers Join Today? Avoiding a False Choice

It doesn’t really matter in the final analysis whether Luther and Calvin would find the average evangelical church in America today more or less congenial than Rome. Yet it does suggest an interesting point of departure as we think about the reasons why some find the latter attractive.

Many of us were raised to believe that we had all the answers (whatever they were) and that Roman Catholicism believes in Mary and the pope rather than Jesus and the Bible, in salvation by works rather than grace. And yet, as the surveys demonstrate, we didn’t really know what we believed or why we believed it—beyond a few slogans. If one asked the question in the correct form, we could possibly give the right answer on the big ones at least. However, a rising generation now is indistinguishable in its beliefs from Mormons, Unitarians, or those who check the “spiritual but not religious” box. “Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism” is the working theology of most Americans, including evangelicals, we’re told. So when it comes to authority and salvation—the two issues at the heart of the Reformation’s concern, Protestantism today (mainline and evangelical) seems increasingly remote from anything that the Reformers would have recognized as catholic and evangelical faith and practice. 

In my “cage phase” (when emerging Reformed zealots should be quarantined for a while), I read from a sixteenth-century confession the section on grace and justification. The audience was a rather large group of fellow students at a Christian college. “Do you think we could sign this statement today?”, I asked. Several replied, “No: it’s too Calvinistic.” That was interesting, because I was quoting the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, which anathematized the Reformation’s teaching that justification was by Christ’s merits alone, imputed to sinners through faith alone. I didn’t quote the whole section, but only the part that affirmed that we are saved by grace and that our cooperation in the process of salvation—even our will to believe—requires God’s grace. 

You have to dig beneath the sweeping slogans and generalizations; its precisely in the details—where many eyes glaze over—that the massive differences between Rome and the Reformation appear.  Continue at Michael Horton

The Problem of Evangelical Biblical Illiteracy

For well over twenty years now, Christian leaders have been lamenting the loss of general biblical literacy in America. No doubt you have read some of the same dire statistics that I have. Study after study demonstrates how nearly everyone in our land owns a Bible (more than one, in fact) but few ever take the time to read it, much less study it closely. Indeed, while the Exploring Religious America Survey of 2002 reports that over 84 percent of Americans consider the Bible to be "very" or "somewhat important" in helping them make decisions in life, recent Gallup polls tell us that only half can name even one of the four Gospels, only a third are able to identify the individual who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and most aren't even able to identify Genesis as the Bible's opening text. 

Upon hearing these figures (and many more are readily available), some among us may be tempted to seek odd solace in the recognition that our culture is increasingly post-Christian. Perhaps these general population studies are misplaced in holding secular people to Christian standards. Much to our embarrassment, however, it has become increasingly clear that the situation is really no better among confessing Christians, even those who claim to hold the Bible in high regard. Again, numerous studies are available for those seeking further reason to be depressed. In a 2004 Gallup study of over one thousand American teens, nearly 60 percent of those who self-identified as evangelical were not able to correctly identify Cain as the one who said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and over half could not identify either "Blessed are the poor in spirit" as a quote from the Sermon on the Mount or "the road to Damascus" as the place where Saul/Paul's blinding vision occurred. In each of these questions, evangelical teens fared only slightly better than their non-evangelical counterparts. 

These numbers serve to underscore the now widespread recognition that the Bible continues to hold pride of place as "America's favorite unopened text" (to borrow David Gibson's wonderful phrase), even among many Christians. As a professor of New Testament studies at Seattle Pacific University, I know this reality only too well. I often begin my survey of the Christian Scriptures course by asking students to take a short biblical literacy quiz, including questions of the sort mentioned above. The vast majority of my students--around 95 percent of them--are Christians, and half of them typically report that they currently attend nondenominational evangelical churches. Yet the class as a whole consistently averages a score of just over 50 percent, a failing grade. In the most recent survey, only half were able to identify which biblical book begins with the line, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Barely more than half knew where to turn in the Bible to read about the first Passover. Most revealing in my mind is the fact that my students are generally unable to sequence major stories and events from the biblical metanarrative. Only 23 percent were able to order four key events from Israel's history (Israelites enter the promised land; David is made king; Israel is divided in two; and the people of Judah go into exile), and only 32 percent were able to sequence four similarly important events from the New Testament (Jesus was baptized; Peter denies Jesus; the Spirit descends at Pentecost; and John has a vision on the island of Patmos). These students may know isolated Bible trivia (84 percent knew, for instance, that Jesus was born in Bethlehem), but their struggle to locate key stories, and their general inability to place those stories in the Bible's larger plotline, betrays a serious lack of intimacy with the text--even though a full 86 percent of them identified the Bible as their primary source for knowledge about God and faith.   Continue at David R. Nienhuis

Are Mormons Christian?

Note: The FAQs is TGCs new series in which we answer your questions about the latest news and current events. Although the series normally attempts to be as fact-based and objective as possible, this entry relies on scriptural interpretation that some Christians may consider wrong or at least open to debate.

"Are Mormons Christian?" Since the 1820s, when Joseph Smith founded the religious movement, evangelicals and other orthodox Christians have answered with a resounding "no." Over the past decade, though, many Americans have begun to provide a different response. In an interview with CNN, megachurch pastor Joel Osteen said that while the Mormon faith is "not traditional Christianity" he still views them as "brothers in Christ."

And earlier this month, the widely read evangelical blogger David French wrote,

I'd argue that our view of salvation --- whether Arminian or Reformed --- is of enormous consequence, going directly not only to the nature of God but also how we understand each moment of our lives, yet I rarely hear anyone seriously ask, "Are Methodists Christian?" Perhaps that's not so much because the theological differences aren't real and profound but because we've made our historical peace through shared understanding of our faith in Christ. Perhaps its time that we make that same peace with Mormons.

Are Mormons our fellow "brothers in Christ?" Are the theological distinctions between Mormonism and evangelicalism similar to the differences between Presbyterians and Methodists?

In order to examine these questions, I've compiled answers from various resources and subject-area experts and presented them in the form of a FAQ. This article is not intended to be an in-depth explanation of Mormon history or theology, but rather an examination of areas that are relevant to the question of whether Mormons should be considered by evangelicals to be Christians. For more information on Mormonism I recommend Andrew Jackson's Mormonism Explained: What Latter-day Saints Teach and Practice.  Continue at Joe Carter

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Christian Ministry and Conformity to the World

If someone were to ask an Evangelical if there was any particular 19th-century Anglican that he admired, I’d venture to say that the name that would be most readily supplied is J. C. Ryle. And that is not at all without cause. Ryle’s work on discipleship and Christian living has represented a remarkable service to Christ’s Church.

But another 19th-century Anglican who I wish was a household name in Evangelical Christianity is Charles Bridges. My acquaintance with Bridges comes chiefly in the form of his classic work, The Christian Ministry. It is a wonderful manual of pastoral ministry that I would recommend wholeheartedly to anyone interested in shepherding Christ’s flock.

Particularly helpful was a section he wrote on “Conformity to the World,” and its relationship to the Christian ministry. It’s no secret that many celebrity pastors in contemporary evangelicalism—and, sadly, the many non-celebrity pastors they’re influencing—employ conformity to the world as the modus operandi of their ministries. With a shallow, and rather twisted, interpretation of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, these men embrace—with their actions if not with their confession—the philosophy of ministry that Christians must become like the world to win the world.

And the interesting thing is, that kind of uber-cool, hip, innovative ministry philosophy is hundreds—and even thousands—of years old. Bridges’ commentary on the subject proves that this avant-guard, new-kind-of-ministry of the 21st century was alive and doing damage even in 19th century England. 

I encourage you to read his comments slowly, as the wisdom to be gained from them is extremely profitable for those who have ears to hear.  Continue at Mike Riccardi

The Pink Ribbon and the Dollar Sign

Editor's note: This is not today's only article on Komen and Planned Parenthood. In addition to our news report, you might also enjoy Albert Mohler's argument that there is "no neutral ground when it Comes to Planned Parenthood," Matthew Lee Anderson's examination of "The Politics of Breast Cancer," and Mollie Ziegler Hemingway's look at "The Komen Fiasco's Silver Lining." 

The Pink Ribbon, for now anyway, is an emblem of the culture wars.

Today the Susan Komen Foundation for the Cure announced that it was caving to pressure from the Planned Parenthood Federation, reversing its decision not to fund Planned Parenthood in the screening of women for breast cancer.

This is an important victory for Planned Parenthood and the abortion rights lobby. First of all, the association with Komen is a key piece in Planned Parenthood's effort to present itself as a "women's health provider" rather than simply as an abortion provider. Beyond that, the surrender of the nation's leading breast cancer awareness group to this kind of political pressure proves the clout of Planned Parenthood and their allies.

Evangelical and Catholic Christians, and our pro-life allies of all faiths, might be tempted to draw some wrong conclusions from this tragic affair. After all our years of trumpeting opinion polls showing a "pro-life majority" in the United States, this demonstrates that, when it comes to money and power, the pro-choice forces aren't sustained simply by the penumbra and emanations of an old Supreme Court decision.  Continue at Christianity Today