In 391, while in Hippo (where he was well known by reputation) he was ordained a priest. According to some stories, this was almost done against his will. Yet, within five years, he was made Bishop of Hippo. In his episcopate, we once again see a modern man. In addition to his pastoral duties within Hippo, he traveled to church councils in the region of North Africa – forty to fifty times over the course of the 35 years he served as bishop.
Read moreMonths later, after Thompson and Zacharias had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) confining them to silence, Zacharias publicly released a statement to CT, painting Thompson as the predator."
Read moreStackhouse, who formerly taught at the University of Manitoba, is writing a book on evangelicalism--what it is, what it isn't, and how it is different from what we see in the U.S.--for Oxford University Press. Before it comes out next year, I asked him a few questions about the book and the state of evangelicalism today.
The book is due out next year.
What prompted you to want to write this book?/B>
Read morePastors must also face what some sociologists have called the new cult of anti-racism. John McWhorter, the black professor of literature at Columbia University, has written that this new "anti-racism is a profoundly religious movement in everything but terminology." Religious, but not the religion of Jesus.
Read moreI have studied all aspects of the controversies about RZ, talked with many witnesses to the issues and events involved, and also used a leading private investigator who is a friend. I did not do all this in order to prove Ravi guilty or innocent. All things being equal, I wanted him to be what he claimed, an apologist with total moral integrity. I took pains in all this investigation in order to figure out truth. My ultimate aim was pastoral.
Read moreA week or so back, I was reminded of one of the most frightening movies I have ever seen. The name of the film is 'Conspiracy' and it starred Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci among others. It was, literally, a horror film. Yet, there was no violence or bloodshed. There were no special effects employed. In fact, the film portrayed an event with which most of us are familiar, a board meeting around a conference table.
Read moreI want to make a confession of sin. Just moments after hearing the first reports of Jacob Blake's shooting, I went numb. The litany of shootings, violent protests, politicized racial vitriol, and non-stop lament since Ahmaud Arbery ("say his name") had numbed me. I recognize this as both evidence of white privilege and the result of personal complacency.
These are all age-old questions--"To whom will we go?" Peter asks (Jn. 6:68). But for a long time our ecclesial cultures have mostly ignored them. Everything we older theologians have equipped younger people with now sounds like the tin clang of jargon: pietistic, academic, or ideological. "The Kingdom of God"--the great watchword of the 20th century--has shriveled in the imagination.
Read moreOver the weekend, that same friend e-mailed me to say he was wrong. This story just appeared in Baptist Press. You should know going in that Robby Gallaty is a very influential young Southern Baptist pastor. Excerpts:
Robby Gallaty, pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tenn., said he views the impact of COVID-19 on ministry not as an interruption, but instead as a disruption to the way things have typically been done in the local church.
Read moreIt took a great African Bishop named Augustine to point out the false teaching in Pelagianism: to think that God redeems according to some scale of human merit; to imagine that some human beings are actually capable of a sinless life; to suppose that the descendants of the first human beings to sin are themselves born innocent. In Augustine's City of God and other writings, he points out that Pelagius asserted a model of thinking that excludes God from human salvation.
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