Converting from Westboro Baptist

(KWCH Eyewitness News) They’re known worldwide as the group from Kansas that protests at soldiers’ funerals, and says God hates America because it allows homosexuality. Now, Westboro Baptist Church is reacting to the defection of a key member. “She just decided she did not want to obey God,” spokesman Steve Drain says. “She did not want to obey scripture.” She is Megan…

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,…

The Anglican Itch

The Church of England and the Anglican “communion” have always fascinated me. I received my M.Div. from an Episcopal Seminary, and wrote my dissertation and first book (I am working on several seconds) on bishop John Jewel, the leading theological light of Elizabeth I’s first decade, and the chief defender of the 1559 Elizabethan Settlement. My brother William is a rector of…

Leithart’s Double Edgy Sword

I know we’ve posted a number of responses to Leithart over the past several weeks, but his work is actually quite interesting and (we think) worthy of response. If anything, we respond out of respect for someone who’s engaging in his theology. Almost as if yesterday’s post summoned him forth, Dr. Peter Leithart tweeted today: I somewhat cynically read this as both…

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…

Who’s not a Christian?

I can recall growing up as the son of Evangelical Protestant missionaries being taught that Roman Catholics were certainly not Christians. I’m not sure whether my parents ever said that to me, but it was a marked theme in some of the preaching I heard in the various low-church Baptist and small non-denominational churches that marked my growing up years. After all,…