Dr Paul Allen

Below is an analysis and commentary on the SBC membership and baptism trends. LifeWay just released the data and sent my commentary out, so I thought I would post it here. I'd ask the patience of my friends from other (or no) denominations, but since this is national news, it is worth the time to share here. Southern Baptist are the largest Protestant denomination in America and its future impacts all of evangelicalism, even globally. The article talks a lot about trends-- and one in particular. It's called a membership change trend-- and you really need to get to know this trend if you want to understand the future. It's a long and consistent trend. I give more details about it here and have been expressing concern about it for quite some time . We've been talking about this trend for several years. Here is 2008 , 2009 , and 2010 . A few years ago, some leaders wanted to argue about the reality of membership decline since it was small and just one year... then two

Image via Wikipedia The question of the status of the human embryo (and fetus) has been at the center of heated political debate, typically focusing on the issue of abortion.  Such debate has only intensified as disputes over stem cell research have entered the public consciousness as well.  The ethical questions involved in these issues are numerous.  The most significant question, however, is the one that is often overlooked as rhetoric about “choice” and “privacy” drowns it out.  This question that must remain at the forefront of such debates is this: At what point does the life of an individual human being begin? Embryo: A Defense of Human Life   by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen addresses this and other related ethical questions. Robert George is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and is a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University .  He is the author of several books including   Making Men Moral   and   In Defense of Natural Law .  Christoph