I got the most recent copy of Christianity Today [1] yesterday and when I read the cover I set it aside with a heavy heart. The lead story is the spread of the health and wealth gospel in Africa. Great. We’re exporting our worst, greediest theology to the poorest continent. I couldn’t even consider looking inside. But I did and I’m glad, it wasn’t all bad news:
- A big youth conference in England had a falling out when one of the lead speakers said that penal substitution was akin to cosmic child abuse. Part of the group split and will run their own conference and have Carson and Piper speaking on the atonement. Excellent [2]!
- In a brief article on the new creation-science museum, Ken Ham is quoted as saying, “Christians have problems answering the questions of skeptics because churches and Christian colleges don’t teach apologetics.” He’s right. We need help in this. Funny that I’m co-teaching an apologetics class at church.
- The Nazarenes are struggling over the doctrine of “complete sanctification.” It is the idea that a Christian can become sinless, also known as perfectionism. Not sure if there will be a change but there is a discussion going on and that is a good thing [3].
- In light of the recent conversion of ETS ex-president Francis Beckwith to Roman Catholicism, the editors wrote an excellent editorial [4] on the relationship between justification and sanctification.
- There is an excellent piece on life in a troubled church by Christine Scheller. I’m going to read it again.
- Pastor Bob Roberts (his real name) is featured and speaks of church planting with a global perspective. I don’t know that I agree with everything he says, but I was impressed that after chasing the Big Church (I hear Peter Gabriel in my head) dream, he asked himself “Why isn’t Jesus enough for you?” Then he changed his approach to church and focused on the right things.
Good stuff hidden behind extremely bad news on the cover. If you get a chance, look past the heart breaking part and find the gold.