Dr Paul Allen

The hours and days following the  horrifying murder and arson  at a Latter-day Saints church service in Michigan were not the time to parse theological identities. However, many used the tragedy as an opportunity to offer their answer to a question that has grown in importance and controversy in recent years: “Are Mormons truly Christian?”   Pew Research  lists Latter-day Saints among “All Christians,” along with Protestants, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mormons not only call themselves Christian, it’s in their name, “ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .”  However, to borrow from Shakespeare, naming a flower a rose doesn’t make it smell just as sweet. Though Mormonism uses similar concepts and terms as Christianity, what is meant is often very different from what Christianity teaches. As  Lukus Counterman  put it at The Gospel Coalition, “While both Mormons and historic Christians believe in ‘Jesus Christ,...

On July 16, 1212, atop the windswept plains of Las Navas de Tolosa, Christendom and Islam clashed in one of the most consequential battles of the Middle Ages. This event shattered an empire, galvanized a continent, and still echoes in the political currents of modern Spain and among Islamist terrorists who vow vengeance for it. It had been 500 years since the armies of Muhammad first crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began their conquest of Iberia in 711. In their wake, most of the peninsula fell under the crescent. Yet a single ember of resistance smouldered in the northern mountains of Asturia—small, defiant, unyielding. From this remnan,t the Reconquista was born: the slow-burning, centuries-long Christian effort to reclaim the land for the cross. A Gathering Storm By the dawn of the thirteenth century, that ember had grown into a flame. Northern Christian kingdoms had pushed their borders south, reclaiming nearly half of Spain. Alarmed, the Muslim world responded with a thund...

Fruit of the Spirit, we took a general look at the list to begin to uncover the meaning of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Galatians. Now we will examine each of these slices of the Spirit’s fruit, starting with love. What is this love produced by the Spirit?  Defining love is not an easy task, but here’s one that attempts to sum up the biblical nature of love: Love is a holy, divine affection toward others produced by the Spirit of God in all believers. This is spiritual love – produced, wrought, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. So, what does this love truly mean? First, spiritual love is not a natural phenomenon. Spiritual love is not the natural affection of the world. The world might be capable of love in the human sense of the term. We know there are unbelievers who have good marriages. Some unbelievers are willing to sacrifice for the greater good of humanity. It is possible to do these things without having true love as God defines it. As Paul says, a person can be a great ...

One of the most egregious examples of fake history: Georgetown University Professor John Esposito’s claim that Five centuries of peaceful coexistence elapsed before political events and an imperial-papal power play led to centuries-long series of so-called holy wars that pitted Christendom against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust. [ Islam: The Straight Path , p. 64] Esposito is saying that, from the very start, Muslims and Christians had always lived in “peaceful coexistence,” until those vile European Christians decided to ruin it all with the First Crusade. Those “five centuries of peaceful coexistence” featured Islam violently conquering three-quarters of the Christian world, with all the usual massacres, mass enslavements, and the systematic destruction of churches — 30,000 of them in 1009 alone.  Perhaps hundreds of thousands of Christians were slaughtered or enslaved by Muslims in the decades before Pope Urban II finally responded to cries fo...

One of the world’s oldest Christian communities is facing extermination from jihadists, as Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda have seized the Syrian city of Aleppo –home to an estimated 3.5 million people, including more than 50,000 Christians. While Aleppo has seen a mass exodus of some 200,000 Christians in the past 12 years, the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took control of large parts of the city on Sunday, prompting warnings from persecution watchers of a fresh “religious cleansing” of Christians. “It looks like we are now heading for another major crisis for Syrian Christians,”  Dr Martin Parsons , director of  The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution , told  The Stream . “Christian aid agencies need to prepare for a massive relief operation.” “Effective and Deadly” Muslim Militants Parsons explained that HTS is a direct affiliate of Al Qaeda set up under the name of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front in 2011 with the help of Abu Bakr al-Ba...

Tom Gilson.  It’s always been there. It’s in one of the most famous passages in the Bible. Why hadn’t I seen it before? I had one of those moments this morning, reflecting on Alistair Begg’s message last Sunday in which he explained his advice to a grandmother that she attend her granddaughter’s same-sex wedding. He’s been blasted for it, sometimes far beyond what he deserves, for example, in a blistering condemnation The Christian Post responded to in an opinion piece. (More on that below.) Begg is one of just three pastors I’ve put on my podcast listening list, other than friends of mine who are pastors. I put him there because I consider him one of the three best. I love his commitment to the love and truth of God and his wise teaching of the Scriptures. I’ve never known anything to complain about except the beef I have with every speaker from Scotland or Ireland: His accent gives him an unfair advantage over the rest of us who speak and teach. (Yes, it’s a joke.) So I was sligh...

Samuel Emadu “That’s the thickest book I’ve ever seen!” My friend and I were discussing the differences between Christianity and Mormonism. He’d just pulled the Mormon “Quad” out of his locker, and I was amazed at its heft. Roughly two and a half inches thick, this collection of Mormon scriptures includes the KJV Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. As we continued our conversation, one thing was clear: the Bible may have been bound alongside the other Mormon scriptures, but it didn’t carry the same authority. What Do Mormons Believe About the Bible? Article 8 of the Mormon Articles of Faith reads, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” Mormonism doesn’t view the Bible and the Book of Mormon equally. The Bible’s status as God’s Word is relativized by the phrase “as far as it is translated correctly.” The Book of Mormon is the word of God;...

In working with unbelievers and believers alike, we’re called to live and labour in a manner worthy of the gospel (Phil. 1:27). We should be quick to humbly confess and repent when we fall short of it. But how should we respond to coworkers who’ve taken offence not over our own actions but over those of other Christians? 1. Listen with humility. In the face of frequent, embittered accusations that all Christians are prejudiced or malignant, it may be tempting to respond with defensiveness, resentment, or even retaliation. But humility is defusing and disarming. Even the strongest and proudest among us may be persuaded by patience and a soft tongue (Prov. 25:15). Our best first step is to genuinely listen. This is more active (and self-forgetful) than silently crafting a rebuttal while the other person speaks. It involves praying for a tender heart that’s moved with compassion over the wrongs others have experienced as we mourn with those who mourn (Rom. 12:15). Our coworkers (or others...

It’s not a matter of  if  but  when . When will students in your church—or even the child in your home—announce same-sex attractions or transgender identities? For some of you, the “when” may have been last week, coinciding with National Coming Out Day. But no matter what day kids come out, Christians need to be ready. We need to know how to demonstrate love without affirmation, kindness without capitulation. Ultimately, we need to know what the Bible says and how to respond. In her article, “ How to Respond If Your Child Comes Out Today ,” Maria Keffler offers advice for Christian parents in this very situation. And she gets practical, providing suggestions for what to say in the moment, even if it’s just, “I need some time to process.”

These past two years of the pandemic have undoubtedly been the most difficult of my 15+ years in pastoral ministry here in India. I became the lead pastor of our small urban church in 2009, and since then by God’s grace, we have become a cluster of four churches with about 600 members—many of whom come from different faith backgrounds. In May 2021, our church family was shattered by the deaths of four highly active and beloved church members in just over three weeks. In addition to this, almost all of our people lost at least one relative due to COVID, several of our members lost jobs or experienced pay cuts, many have struggled with post-COVID anxiety and panic attacks, and our children did their schooling online for 23 months straight. Every person in our church has been affected negatively by this pandemic in some way or another, and many have been devastated. As a church, it’s also been challenging to navigate the unchartered territory the pandemic led us into: not being able to me...