Every now and again I receive an email, often as part of a group mailing addressed to a wide variety of the most-read bloggers, asking me to use my site as a platform to post or provide comment on a particularly inflammatory issue. I got one of those emails today, this one from Andy Jackson…
As you might imagine, I receive a good deal of email from people who read this site. More often than not I am glad to receive these emails and to respond to them. Communication with readers has proven to be a tremendous challenge and encouragement to me, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Probably the…
I have been chipping away at this post for two weeks. And in reality I have been thinking about it for far longer than that. And yet what I bring you today is really quite pathetic. I have been unable to formulate clear, biblical wisdom on this topic. And so I am going to present…
I spent nearly my entire young life attending Christian schools. From the first grade all the way to the eleventh, there was only one year that I did not attend a Christian school. During these formative years I did not only attend schools where I was taught God’s Word, but I also attended Catechism classes,…
A couple of months ago I wrote about the Emerging church and suggested that a movement which celebrates doubt is a movement which Christians should not be eager to join. I suggested that this movement (or conversation, as they prefer) values doubt over assurance, seeing doubt as being somehow more humble and godly than assurance.…
Tony Jones, one of the more prominent leaders within the Emergent church movement has recently posted a pair of articles at the “Out of Ur” blog responding to the charge that Emergent is the new Christian left. “[I]s Emergent a new camp for Christian liberalism? In this post Tony Jones, the national coordinator for Emergent,…
Spiritual discernment is a subject that has been much on my mind in recent weeks. I have been thinking a great deal about how I can become more discerning and how I can serve others in helping them understand the value of discernment as well as the practice of discernment. To that end I have…
As I began writing this little post, my RSS reader pinged and up came the headline: “A Dog Story With A Happy Ending.” This comes courtesy of Rebecca, it seems. The timing is somewhat ironic, since the dog story I’m writing today has quite an unhappy ending. Almost eight years ago, shortly after we got…
Some time ago I became convicted, by the Spirit I trust, that I did not regard the celebration of the Lord’s Supper with sufficient significance or gravity. I felt that I did not sufficiently sanctify this celebration through lack of preparation and lack of focus when actually taking the bread and the wine. Over the…
My review of Confessions of a Reformisson Rev. by Mark Driscoll raised a furor. I was shocked by just how quickly the comments began to add up. They quickly bounced up to over 170 before David, who helps me moderate the comments area, decided that they had served their purpose and needed to be shut…
Today is a holiday in Canada and apparently we are supposed to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria. Most Canadians celebrate the day by imbibing near-lethal quantities of alcohol. Actually, this is how Canadians celebrate most holidays. Since I hope to spend most of this day with the family (not drinking, of course!), I did…
The article I wrote yesterday has caused a bit of a ruckus. I intended to answer some of the criticisms this morning, but then I had to try to keep Michaela from crying for two hours, and once I handed her off to Aileen, the phone rang a few times and before I knew it,…
On Monday, Joe Carter, he of Evangelical Outpost fame, posted on his web site discussing an article Andrew Sullivan had published in Time Magazine entitled “My Problem with Christianism.” There is one aspect of Carter’s article I would like to discuss today: the preamble. This is how Joe began: “While I believe that he can…
How many times have you heard a person claim that he has “accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior?” Have you ever asked him what it means that Jesus is his Lord? Have you ever asked him how Jesus is his Savior? What makes Him his Savior? And what does it mean that He…
Every now and then I take my van to WalMart for an oil change. I generally try to make these appointments for as early in the morning as possible, for early in the morning, I very nearly have the place to myself. A little while ago I brought the car in and then spent the…
Immediately prior to the Together for the Gospel Conference, I had the opportunity to be part of a panel discussing issues pertaining to blogging. In the days following I mentioned on my blog that, due to the brevity of the occasion, I did not have the chance to address some of the “soapbox” issues pertaining…
It seems that life is filled, at almost every turn, with trials and difficulties. Some of these times of trail are light while others are terribly weighty. Strangely, some of these trials are caused by times of great joy while others are caused by great pain. The birth of a child can prove to be…
King for a Week is an honor I bestow on blogs that I feel are making a valuable contribution to my faith and the faith of other believers. Every week (or so) I select a blog, link to it from my site, and add that site’s most recent headlines to my left sidebar. While this…
The recent edition of Time Magazine features “The People Who Shape Our World.” Time has created a list of 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example, they feel, is transforming our world. It is important to note, before we take a peek at this list, that it is not really the world…
I promised yesterday that today I would have a big announcement. Well here it is. I am announcing the launch of a new web site. Well, a new/old web site. You may remember a site called Discerning Reader. Once a very popular and well-regarded site, it ran into all sorts of trouble, the details of…