J. I. Packer on Hell

[Note: Packer's video has been removed from the internet. Instead, go here for a link to a PDF of Packer's chapter on the descent in his book on the Apostles Creed.]

"...He descended into hell."



See also GotQuestions

Twelve Doctrines of Christmas

Not entirely correct (e.g., "credo baptism"), but hilarious nonetheless.

Ruth: Providence in Your Darkest Days

Proper23C Ruth - Providence in the Darkest of Days from Fr. Chris Larimer.

A sermon preached at Holy Apostles in Elizabethtown, KY. The text is Ruth 1. It focuses on how God's good providence is seen in the ordinary actions of ordinary people in the darkest days of history - in order to bring the Light of the World. The sermon is 26 minutes long

Neo-Nazis Become Orthodox Jews

CNN is playing a documentary on a couple of Polish Neo-Nazis who discovered that they were actually Jews. Their families had hidden their ethnicity & religion during the Nazi era. Now, they have converted to Orthodox Judaism!

It's amazing what we forget about who we truly are. We were created in the image of God. Those who passed through the baptismal waters have had that image repristinated by being grafted into Christ.

What would happen if the Church - you and me and all the baptized - were to, like this couple, rediscover who we really are? Would it require a radical break with who we were? Would it require a reorientation of our priorities? Our daily life?

What would need to change for you?

New Testament Prophecy

This is what New Testament prophecy looks like. The word of God rolling out of a person's heart with passion and conviction!

Religion in a Recession

A troubled warden approached his pastor and said, "We've got serious problems. Our members don't invite people to church. Our members don't give enough to pay the bills."

The pastor said, "As you know, my job is spiritual development. You'll have to bring that up with our evangelism and finance committees."

The warden returned not long after that and said, "Things are getting worse. Attendance is down. Giving is down. We might not be able to pay the staff!"

The pastor said, "Why didn't you tell me it was that serious? But as you know, my job is spiritual development. We'll have to bring up these problems at our next vestry meeting."

Immediately at the start of the vestry meeting, the warden stood up and said, "Pastor, we have a spiritual problem in our church."

America does not have a failing economy.

America's churches don't have attendance and money problems.

Our spiritual problem is being exposed.

2 Chronicles 7:14.

Progressive Church

This is a video post, so if you're reading it in Facebook you will need to visit the original post.

Come in for a comparison quote today!

Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Church

What is the Dunning-Kruger Effect? While this article goes on in length and points to the original research, here's the definition:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence: because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. "Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

In other words, people who lack a skill often don't have enough ability to recognize that they lack that skill. It happens all the time - as the above-linked interview's anecdotes suggest. But it's tragic when it happens in the church. I'm thinking of a few instances.

First, everybody knows that if you can't pass muster in the musical world, you can always get an audience at church. It seems we have even less standards for performers than we do for members.



Maybe it's not always that bad...but I'm willing to bet that most of you have sat through a painful offertory or two in your life.

And it's not just poor performance. The actual compositions these days are TERRIBLE. Theologically vapid. Poetically unsound. And intentionally unsingable. I tend to agree with C.S. Lewis, who thought that most (traditional English) hymns were "fifth-rate poetry set to sixth-rate music." However, those hymns have never made me want to burst into tears or write letters to the bishop. They have never made me worry about the children who were taught to sing them. Aesthetic quality isn't really the point, although God deserves the best -- at the very least we should not be forced to sing heresy. Our music should elevate us to assume God's perspective rather than reiterate our own. It should focus on on Christ and His Kingdom rather than moor us in our own experience. (Contrary to contemporary opinion, Latin chant is not only breathtakingly beautiful, it's pretty easy to learn. Certainly it's easier to sing than some of those showtunes that pass for praise and worship these days!)

Secondly, the article proffers education as a means of addressing the problem. I couldn't agree more. I enjoy introducing people to good church music. I'm no music expert, but I have a good ear and a wide-ranging appreciation for it. (Yes, even the modern guitar-stuff can be well done on all accounts...for some reason, most just choose not to go through the effort.)

But this isn't just about music. What about PRAYER? Have you ever been stuck in a prayer group with someone who just has to use "just" just about every other word? (just)

“Lord, just hear us tonight. We just lift up our hands to you and pray that you will just send you love down to us in ways we just can’t understand. Take us just as we are Lord. Just, just. Just, just.”

Just telling them to quit isn't going to be enough. "Lord, teach us to pray..." Okay - let's get on with this vital work. One of the things that drew me to the Anglican Church was her rich tradition of prayer. I had a real sense of the poverty of my own prayers. I felt quite privatized in my prayer life - as though I were only praying my concerns but never being taken outside of my own limited points of reference. Liturgical prayer changed that. And I know of no better source in English than the Book of Common Prayer. Look at the older ones and you'll be praying concerns out of the Scriptures that would have never crossed your own mind.

I'm not advocating doing away with private, highly-personal prayers. But I'm trying to aim for a balance. Looking at high quality public prayers will help us to improve our own private prayer life. It will lift us beyond searching for words and aim us toward seeking God's face in prayer.

Lastly, many Christians settle for a poorly trained ministry. While roughly half of active full-time clergy have at least a bachelor's degree, the other half...doesn't. I don't want to fall into the trap of credentialism, but there is plenty to be said for having had a good bit of formalized training in the texts of Scripture, the theological and historical tradition of the church, and pastoral practice. I'm not so much concerned with post-nominals that come with that formation but rather with the habits and attitudes it fosters as well as the data conveyed.

I'm really concerned for a church that's led by someone who has no real sense of church history beyond hearsay from grandparents about the good ol'days. And someone who has only read the Scriptures for themselves and then teaches that as God's word is little more than a medieval pope mistaking his opinion for God's revelation. Reading Scripture together is necessary for the people of God so that we can come to a common understanding, at least on Scripture's principle teachings. (Col. 4:16; 1 Th. 5:27; cf. Neh. 8)

Those are just a few of my thoughts on this. Where else should we be looking?

Asking the wrong question

Feast of Ss. Peter & Paul

These two have been on my mind as I've been working through Galatians (where Paul recounts setting Peter back on the path from the Judaizing heresy). I'm thankful for both of them: Peter gave the Church a pastoral and confessional interest, Paul gave the Church her rigorous theology. Thanks be to God for both of these wonderful men!

The Confession of Peter ("Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God") is commemorated on 18 January, and the Conversion of Paul (on the approach to Damascus) a week later on 25 January. On 29 June we commemorate the martyrdoms of both apostles. The date is the anniversary of a day around 258, under the Valerian persecution, when what were believed to be the remains of the two apostles were both moved temporarily to prevent them from falling into the hands of the persecutors.

The Scriptures do not record the deaths of Peter or Paul, or indeed any of the Apostles except for James the son of Zebedee (Acts 12:2), but they are clearly anticipated (see the readings below), and from an early date it has been said that they were martyred at Rome at the command of the Emperor Nero, and buried there. As a Roman citizen, Paul would probably have been beheaded with a sword. It is said of Peter that he was crucified head downward. The present Church of St Peter in Rome replaces earlier churches built on the same site going back to the time of the Emperor Constantine, in whose reign a church was built there on what was believed to be the burial site of Peter. Excavations under the church suggest that the belief is older than Constantine.

St. Augustine writes (Sermon 295):
Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; and even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles' blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.

FIRST READING: Ezekiel 34:11-16
(The LORD God will be a shepherd to Israel, and they shall be His flock.)

PSALM 87
(The foundations of Zion, the city of God, rest upon the holy hills. Of many nations it shall be said: In Zion were they born.)

EPISTLE: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
(Paul writes: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.")

THE HOLY GOSPEL: John 21:15-19
(Jesus, after rising from the dead, said to Peter: "When you were young, you went where you would, but when you are old, you will go where you are taken." And by these words, He foretold Peter's death. He then said, "Follow me.")

Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified thee by their martyrdom: Grant that thy Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by thy Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Fatherhood of God

The Fatherhood of God

The Very Rev’d Canon Robert S. Munday, Ph.D.

Why do Christians call God “Father?” There are those who would say that using masculine language for God is only the result of a patriarchal conception of God that we need to move beyond. But the significance of calling God Father goes much deeper than that. It is worth noting that no other religion calls God “Father.” Even in Old Testament Judaism, they never addressed God as Father. They might say metaphorically, that God is like a Father. But they never called God “Father” in the way that Jesus does.

Jesus brings something entirely new to the realm of human existence. He calls God “Father,” because God is his Father, and he teaches his disciples, “When you pray, pray like this: “Our Father, who art in heaven…” Jesus could not call God “mother,” because he had a mother, and she wasn’t God. As we are “in Christ”—that powerful reality that the Apostle Paul deals with again and again in the New Testament—as we are in Christ, his Father becomes our Father.

But I hear the objection, “What about those who have had bad relationships with their fathers or who have had abusive fathers? It isn’t helpful for them to think of God as Father.” The problem is that naming God according to our conception of what is helpful relegates God to the level of a human construct. We don’t think of God as Father because it is a helpful analogy. We call God Father, because it is a reality—indeed the most precious reality that human beings can know—that if we are in Christ, his Father becomes our Father.

Those who may have had hurtful relationships with their earthly fathers can find healing and fulfillment in the true and perfect Fatherhood of God. God's love and care for us, through Christ, is a precious and powerful truth of which we must not lose sight amid the changing religious landscape that surrounds us.

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Another wrong conception is the notion that God is everyone’s Father. Jesus, addressing the Pharisees, told them:

If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire” (John 8:42-44).

Clearly, the Pharisees to whom Jesus is speaking were not the children of God. Jesus’ Father was not their Father, because they did not receive the One whom God had sent—Jesus himself.

While God is the Creator of every human being, he is not everyone’s Father. The Apostle John makes the distinction:

He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God (John 1:10-13).

Even though Jesus, the Word, the Son of the Eternal Father, is the one through whom the world was made, when Jesus came into the world, his own—the people he had made—did not receive him.

But to those who did receive him, who believed in his name (i.e., received him by faith, confessed his name) he gave the power to become children of God. And Jesus refers to those people as being children born, not of natural descent—that is, they are not born children of God by their natural birth, rather they are those who are “born of God.”

Jesus makes the same point in John, chapter 3, when he tells Nicodemus: “"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again (or born from above).”

How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’ (John 3:5-7).

So, in the very clear words of Jesus, only those who are born again or born from above—not merely born physically, but “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8)—are the children of God who will see and inherit the kingdom.

We do the truth as well as our fellow human beings an injustice when we speak of the fatherhood of God as though it were universal. Those who have not believed in Christ’s name are not children of God. But every Christian ought to be ready and willing to tell them how they can be!

First, we have to get over the idea that sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with someone will offend them—that it is some kind of presumption to share our faith. We have a precious truth to share—how everyone can become a child of God through believing in Christ. That is why the word Gospel means Good News!

So let us share the Good News: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

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The Very Rev’d Canon Robert S. Munday, Ph.D., is Dean and President of Nashotah House Theological Seminary and Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Quincy.

Santification by Grace or through Works

I've been preaching through Galatians, the premier text when it comes to defending the gospel of justification by grace through faith. The practical theologian in me has wrestled with what that means after we've come to salvation...what about sanctification?

Thankfully, the Purtians were full of spiritual wisdom on practical Christianity. In the article below, we learn the distinction between increasing in holiness because we're increasing in grace and increasing in outward righteousness because we're obsessed with the law (instead of the lawgiver). I hope it proves edifying to you as well.

The Difference Between Legal and Gospel Mortification[1]

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By Ralph Erskine

Mr Ralph Erskine (1685-1752) was the son of a Covenanter, a Scottish Presbyterian minister who was imprisoned for field-preaching and refusing to countenance the official episcopalian church. A younger brother of the famous preacher Ebenezer Erskine, Ralph was an evangelical pastor with a love for the truth of God’s Word and the doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is still well known for his “gospel sonnets”, a collection of evangelical poems intended to press home particular Gospel truths. The Erskine brothers were “Marrow Men”, supporting Mr Thomas Boston’s reprinting of the “Marrow of Modern Divinity”, a Puritan book which distinguishes the Covenant of Works from the Covenant of Grace.

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1. Gospel and legal mortification differ in their principles from which they proceed. Gospel mortification is from gospel principles, viz. the Spirit of God [Rom. 8. 13], 'If ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live'; Faith in Christ [Acts 15. 9], 'Purifying their hearts by faith'; The love of Christ constraining [2 Cor. 5. 14], 'The love of Christ constraineth us.' But legal mortification is from legal principles such as, from the applause and praise of men, as in the Pharisees; from pride of self-righteousness, as in Paul before his conversion; from the fear of hell; from a natural conscience; from the example of others; from some common motions of the Spirit; and many times from the power of sin itself, while one sin is set up to wrestle with another, as when sensuality and self-righteousness wrestle with one another. The man, perhaps, will not drink and swear. Why? Because he is setting up and establishing a righteousness of his own, whereby to obtain the favour of God here is but one sin wrestling with another.

2. They differ in their weapons with which they fight against sin. The gospel believer fights with grace's weapons, namely, the blood of Christ, the word of God, the promises of the covenant, and the virtue of Christ's death and cross [Gal. 6. 14] 'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom [or, as it may be read, 'whereby,' viz. by the cross of Christ,] the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.' But now the man under the law fights against sin by the promises and threatenings of the law; by its promises, saying, I will obtain life; and win to heaven, I hope, if I do so and so; by its threatenings, saying, I will go to hell and be damned, if I do not so and so. Sometimes he fights with the weapons of his own vows and resolutions, which are his strong tower, to which he runs and thinks himself safe.

3. They differ in the object of their mortification. They both, indeed, seek to mortify sin, but the legalist's quarrel is more especially with the sins of his conversation, whereas the true believer should desire to fight as the Syrians got orders, that is, neither against great nor small, so much as against the King himself, even against original corruption. A body of sin and death troubles him more than any other sin in the world; 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?' [Rom. 7. 24]. His great exercise is to have the seed of the woman to bruise this head of the serpent.

4. They differ in the reasons of the contest. The believer, whom grace teaches to deny all ungodliness, he fights against sin because it dishonours God, opposes Christ, grieves the Spirit, and separates between his Lord and him; but the legalist fights against sin, because it breaks his peace, and troubles his conscience, and hurts him, by bringing wrath and judgment on him. As children will not play in the dust, not because it sullies their clothes, but flies into their eyes, and hurts them, so the legalist will not meddle with sin, not because it sullies the perfections of God, and defiles their souls, but only because it hurts them. I deny not, but there is too much of this legal temper even amongst the godly.

5. They differ in their motives and ends. The believer will not serve sin, because he is alive to God, and dead to sin [Rom. 6. 6]. The legalist forsakes sin, not because he is alive, but that he may live. The believer mortifies sin, because God loves him; but the legalist, that God may love him. The believer mortifies, because God is pacified towards him; the legalist mortifies, that he may pacify God by his mortification. He may go a great length, but it is still that he may have whereof to glory, making his own doing all the foundation of his hope and comfort.

6. They differ in the nature of their mortification. The legalist does not oppose sin violently, seeking the utter destruction of it. If he can get sin put down, he does not seek it to be thrust out; but the believer, having a nature and principle contrary to sin, he seeks not only to have it weakened, but extirpated. The quarrel is irreconcileable; no terms of accommodation or agreement; no league with sin is allowed, as it is with hypocrites.

7. They differ in the extent of the warfare, not only objectively, the believer hating every false way; but also subjectively, all the faculties of the believer's soul, the whole regenerate part being against sin. It is not so with the hypocrite or legalist; for as he spares some sin or other, so his opposition to sin is only seated in his conscience; his light and conscience oppose such a thing, while his heart approves of it. There is an extent also as to time; the legalist's opposition to sin is of a short duration, but in the believer it is to the end; grace and corruption still opposing one another.

8. They differ in the success. There is no believer, but as he fights against sin, so first or last he prevails, though not always to his discerning; and though he lose many battles, yet he gains the war. But the legalist, for all the work he makes, yet he never truly comes speed; though he cut off some actual sin, yet the corrupt nature is never changed; he never gets a new heart; the iron sinew in his neck, which opposes God, is never broken; and when he gets one sin mortified, sometimes another and more dangerous sin lifts up the head. Hence all the sins and pollutions that ever the Pharisees forsook, and all the good duties that ever they performed, made them but more proud, and strengthened their unbelieving prejudices against Christ, which was the greater and more dangerous sin.

Thus you may see the difference between legal and gospel mortification, and try yourselves thereby.

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[1] Mortification: putting to death (of sin)

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Pentecost sermon

Sermon Pentecost Fr. Chris Larimer LAPF from Fr. Chris Larimer on Vimeo.

Very late in getting this posted...sorry.

Council of Nicea as Theological Rorschach

rt from Pursiful

I’ve become convinced that you can tell a lot about somebody’s religious beliefs if you know what they think about the Council of Nicea in AD 325.

How would you complete this sentence? “The Council of Nicea…”

1. “…was a genuine work of the Holy Spirit, codifying for all time the true apostolic teaching on the person and nature of Christ.”

You are a conservative Catholic or Orthodox Christian. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

2. “…was a good thing, and it may even be said that the Holy Spirit was in it, leading the church to affirm Christ’s full divinity and humanity in terms that have stood the test of time. Shame about those anathemas at the end.”

You are a run-of-the-mill conservative Christian. If you’re Protestant, you can probably recite the Four Spiritual Laws. If you’re Catholic or Orthodox, I bet you’ve had some interesting discussions with some of your fellow parishioners.

3. “…contextualized the Christian message for a Greco-Roman audience. In those terms, I have no problems with it, although I do cross my fingers at certain points when (if) I recite the Creed in church.”

You are a centrist or liberal Christian in a mainline denomination. You probably subscribe to The Christian Century and wear a jacket with elbow patches.

4. “…is irrelevant to my faith. It was just some bunch of Catholic bigwigs asserting their authority over plain, Bible-believing Christians like me. Of course I believe in the Trinity, why do you ask?”

You are a fundamentalist Christian. And you need to take a church history course.

5. “…is irrelevant to my faith. It was just some bunch of Catholic bigwigs asserting their authority over plain, Bible-believing Christians like me. Of course I deny the Trinity, why do you ask?”

You are a Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, or similar. And you need to take a church history course.

6. “…was the final nail in the coffin of the inclusive spirituality of Jesus, replacing theological diversity and egalitarianism with patriarchal regimentation and the silencing of all dissent. Oh, and they wrote the New Testament.”

You are a pagan or Gnostic who appreciates the teachings of Jesus—at least the ones that conform to your religious presuppositions—although you distrust most traditional, institutional forms of Christianity. You need to take a church history course, and you need to quit reading Dan Brown books.

7. “…was the final nail in the coffin of the Judaic faith of Yeshua ha-Mashiach, replacing Torah-observance and traditional Jewish piety with syncretistic pagan mythology. Oh, and they wrote the New Testament.”

You are an Ebionite. You appreciate the teachings of JesusYashuaYehoshuaYeshua—at least the ones that conform to your religious presuppositions—but want nothing to do with Christianity or the New Testament as classically defined. The Greek language probably makes you break out in hives.

J C Ryle to the upcoming conventions

It's summer time, which means "mainline church synods." Believe me, I'm deeply grateful not to have to anticipate dealing with the fallout from these anymore. But since there are some coming up (especially for the PCUSA and TEC's House of Bishops), I thought I'd pass on the incomparable Ryle's advice about what makes (or unmakes) a barren church.

If ministers do not teach sound doctrine, and their members do not live holy lives, they are in imminent peril of destruction. God is every year observing them, and taking account of all their ways. They may abound in ceremonial religion. They may be covered with the leaves of forms, and services, and ordinances. But if they are destitute of the fruits of the Spirit, they are reckoned as useless clutter on the ground. Except they repent, they will be cut down.

+J. C. Ryle, D.D.

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 2 , [Carlisle, PA:Banner of Truth, 1998], 114, 115.

Anglican Adiaphora

The good Bishop of Durham discusses adiaphora in relationship to the problems of the American Episcopal corporation in the wider Anglican Communion.

And also internationally. We have for years in the Anglican Communion operated a tacit rule of agreeing to differ about many things but trying not to do or say things which will cause other Anglicans to stumble. The Lambeth Conference has been the main instrument of this process: broad agreement can be reached on major issues while the provinces retain autonomy in their own lives. Thus, for instance, the Lambeth Conference agreed that it was all right to admit children to Communion prior to Confirmation, which then opened up the question for any individual Province to discuss, as most now have. Our own General Synod repeated Lambeth’s point, so the issue was then passed down to dioceses. Our own Diocese in turn agreed, so the issue has now become a matter for individual parishes. That is a model of how you discern that something is adiaphora, and how you deal with the issue once that has been decided, respecting consciences all the way through. It highlights again this key point: the question of whether a particular issue is adiaphora or not cannot itself be adiaphora. It wouldn’t have done for the Parish of St-Muddy-by-the-Sea to decide independently that the question of unconfirmed children receiving Communion was adiaphora and then proceeding to take its own decision without reference to its diocese, its province, or the whole Communion.,

[SNIP]

The principle of adiaphora was itself, in fact, a matter of life and death. The doctrine that some things are adipahora, and some aren’t, is not itself adiaphora. The decision as to which things make a difference and which do not is itself a decision which makes a huge difference. Some of the early English Reformers claimed explicitly that they were dying precisely for the principle of adiaphora itself, for the right to disagree on certain points (not on everything). That for which you will give your life is hardly something which doesn’t make a difference.

Read the whole thing here.

Marburg redux? LCMS & ACNA explore relations

While it's no Colloquy of Marburg, an exciting turn of events is happening within the LCMS. In the context of exploring "altar and pulpit" fellowship with other confessional Lutheran bodies, the synod also explored similar overtures toward the Anglican Church in North America. I imagine that this will take some time, and be very carefully pursued given that some in ACNA ordain women (LCMS does not) and some in ACNA have a bare receptionist position on the Lord's Table (most don't) and then the Anglo-Catholics could make a big deal about the episcopate. So plenty to resolve...but I'm happy to see the stirrings toward evangelical unity. My sincere desire is that instead of seeking union with Rome, our communion moves steadily toward those who embraced reformed (i.e. Biblical) catholicism, then extend outward toward the children of the Reformation within the Latin Rite.

Pentecost problems

Evangelism or Proselytism

Notice the method: 1) take the music the youngsters are interested in and then set your religious texts to them; 2) make sure to throw in some booze. And...BAZINGA! You've got religious young people!

No...you've just scratched itching ears. As soon as they mature past that phase, they'll be gone again.

How many churches are doing something similar - let the music set the tone for our words (rather than the other way around, cf. Gregorian Chant), then try to appear hip by doing "Theology on Tap" (God-talk at a bar).

You may make converts...but will you have made disciples?

Evangelical Scholarship

"...theological scholarship should be done with the ultimate goal of building up the saints, confounding the opponents of the gospel, and encouraging the brethren. The highest achievement any evangelical theological scholar can attain is not membership of some elite guild but the knowledge that he or she has done work that strengthened the church and extended the kingdom of God through the local church."

Read more about the scandal of the evangelical mind at IX Marks blog!