Medical Study “Proves” Speaking in Tongues has Divine Origin

The video above is from several years ago, but I came across it and thought it was worth commenting on briefly. This is interesting in a number of ways. One major drawback in the reporting is that the Pentecostal practice of speaking in tongues (glossolalia) is not presented as what it is — the practice of only one sector of Protestantism. Rather,…

Is Jesus coming back in the next 40 years?

It seems that nearly half of Christians in America think that Jesus is coming back by the time we could be swearing in an occupant for the 67th term for a President of the United States: (Pew Forum) According to a 2010 Pew Research Center survey, roughly half (48%) of Christians in the U.S. say they believe that Christ will definitely (27%)…

“God is much bigger than… your style [of worship] or mine.”

I recently posted the image above from my professional page on Facebook, and it drew this response: I guess King David worshipped incorrectly then. You know, the whole leaping and dancing and shouts of joy thing? Totally got it wrong. Tambourines? Lyres? If you know anything of Israeli culture, liturgical worship was not the norm until much later. My response: King David’s…

“Giving Up Something” for Lent

The original version of this post from February of 2012 first appeared on the Roads From Emmaus weblog. It is also available as an audio recording at Ancient Faith Radio. In February of 2012, Mark Galli posted an article entitled Giving Up Self-Discipline for Lent which is actually a fairly fascinating look into what Lenten ascetical effort looks like from within a…

Billy Graham: Mormonism No Cult

Well, it seems that Mormonism is no longer a “cult”: (CNN) – Shortly after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney enjoyed cookies and soft drinks with the Rev. Billy Graham and his son Franklin Graham on Thursday at the elder Graham’s mountaintop retreat, a reference to Mormonism as a cult was scrubbed from the website of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. In a…

Institutionalizing the Revival: The Culture of Revolutionary Christianity

I was digging recently into the darker recesses of my childhood memories and came upon a name I probably haven’t thought about in almost thirty years—Sutera. I really couldn’t remember what the name meant (and I half suspected that I was simply thinking of Chicago’s original lead singer), but I started doing some Googling and discovered the names Ralph and Lou Sutera,…

Emergent Church Leader Performs Same-Sex Ceremony

(Christianity Today) Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian and a prominent Christian speaker, led a non-traditional marriage commitment ceremony this weekend, according to The New York Times. Held at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase, Maryland, this ceremony included “traditional Christian elements,” but no bride. And the groom—one of them—was McLaren’s son, Trevor McLaren. The Times reports that…

The Sinner’s Prayer: Baptists Debate the Evangelical Initiation Rite

We ran a piece yesterday regarding the Calvinism/Arminianism debates at the Southern Baptist Convention Great Commission Baptist Convention, and now there’s another fascinating doctrinal development at the convention: The vote wasn’t taken with every head bowed and every eye closed, but delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting today supported the “Sinner’s Prayer” after considerable debate. Jimmy Scroggins, chairman of…

Why Do the Baptists Rage?

As Baptists Prepare to Meet, Calvinism Debate Shifts to Heresy Accusation, by Weston Gentry at Christianity Today A statement by a non-Calvinist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has launched infighting within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, and tensions are expected to escalate Tuesday as church leaders descend on New Orleans… The May 30 document, ‘A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist…