Dr Paul Allen

When you’re CNN , you publish annual articles suggesting Jesus never existed. It’s what you do.” Every year around March and December, this and other news outlets exhume the long-dead thesis that the New Testament is based on a mythological figure, not a Man who really lived, died, and rose from the grave two-thousand years ago. This year, CNN even republished an article from 2012 at CNN.com. In the piece, entitled, “Decoding Jesus: Separating Man from Myth,” John Blake suggests that Christ ’s historical existence is an open question. CNN featured it at the top of their homepage as part of the push for their new series, “Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery.” Blake quotes the likes of Timothy Freke, author of “Jesus Mysteries” and former Baptist pastor Robert Price, author of “Deconstructing Jesus,” who both claim that the Gospels are forgeries or misunderstood allegories, and that the story of Jesus was copied from legends about pagan deities. “In the age of the Internet and sel...

English: An image of Psalm 23 (King James' Version), frontispiece to the 1880 omnibus printing of The Sunday at Home. Scanned at 800 dpi. Français : Illustration du Psaume 23 (version autorisée par le roi Jacques), en frontispice de l'édition omnibus du Sunday at home. Version numérisée à 800 dpi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Joy is the emotion of salvation. We rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory ( 1 Peter 1:8). If you’re a Christian, the Spirit gives you soaring delight in Christ . His beauty and greatness thrill your soul. But quite a few believers struggle to experience joy. Why is that? Some people by nature tend to be sad, and joy is an ongoing challenge. When I read Martyn Lloyd-Jones ’s classic, Spiritual Depression , I was surprised that he mentions temperament or personality as “the first and foremost cause.” He may be right. But there are other reasons. Young moms are often surprised at how tired they are — sleepless and exhausted — and th...

Quadruple combination opened to the Book of Isaiah - note the cross references between Biblical and Latter-day Saint scripture in the footnotes (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Many profess a general belief in the  infallibility  of Scripture without belief in its  inerrancy . We canreject the sub-biblical understanding of the Bible for five reasons: 1. The  infallible but not inerrant  idea is historically unfounded and a recent invention. It is true that there are theologians who limit the scope of Biblical infallibility .  Theologians like I. Howard Marshall limit the scope of infallibility to the Bible’s  revelation of Christ.  Still, Evangelicals generally use the term in its  historic sense  of “unable to err.” Justin Taylor  rightly states, “The word  inerrant  means that something, usually a text, is ‘without error.’ The word  infallible —in its lexical meaning, though not necessarily in theologica...

Commiato dei santi Pietro e Paolo, Messina Museo Regionale (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In a May article for The Conservative, “ Our Starved for Touch Culture ,” Leah Libresco grieves the lack of touch for many in our society. She theorizes that we have abandoned friendly touch because it has been too-frequently tainted or overtaken by ulterior motives of sexual intimacy: “The friendzone is treated as a wasteland not just because we treat sex as an idol, but because friendship and non-sexual affection is written off as irrelevant. Casual dating has been replaced by casual sex; platonic touch has been eclipsed by erotic signalling.” ( Albert Mohler has written a thought-provoking essay making a similar argument.) In addition I suspect that instances of abuse have done their nasty work to bring touch low. Particularly in the church, we are rightly sickened by our public rap sheet of abusers—often church leaders or clergy—who corrupted touch and abused vulnerable human beings to serv...

A leading Christian book publisher has resigned its membership in the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) after a dispute over God and the Gay Christian, a new book published by an affiliated imprint. In a letter to board members, NRB president and CEO Jerry Johnson said that employees of WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, the evangelical division of Penguin Random House , worked on the book. The book, which argues that same-gender sex is not sinful, was published by Convergent Books, a 16-month-old Penguin Random House line that describes itself as "publishing books for progressive and mainline Christians who demand an open, inclusive, and culturally engaged exploration of faith." "Unfortunately, while the Multnomah Publishing Group is separate from Convergent, as a legal and business entity, the staff of the Multnomah and Convergent operations are substantially the same," Johnson wrote. "Most notably, Steven W. Cobb serves as the chief publishing ex...

ROBERT FAW , correspondent: From baptism by immersion to the fervent Bible-based preaching, Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky , looks and sounds like many other Southern Baptist congregations. What you cannot see, however, is that this Baptist church is infused with Calvinism—the teachings of a 16th-century Swiss theologian, John Calvin , whose tenets were practiced by America’s Puritans in the 17th and 18th century. PASTOR DANIEL MONTGOMERY : We want a robust, full, holistic understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ , and Calvinism and the doctrines of grace really give us that picture. There’s been a rise in Calvinism for sure, and I think the return to the doctrines of grace or Reformed theology is really a desire to return to more foundational truths. FAW : John Calvin’s basic belief is the absolute sovereignty of God , that everything and everyone is God’s will, including who is saved. Al Mohler is a Calvinist and president of the Southern Baptis...