Grace Blogs

Al Mohler provides a review this week of the new documentary “American Teen” which was released in a limited number of theaters back in July. The film purports to be a look at what goes on among teenagers in a typical American high school, in this case in Warsaw, Indiana.

It seems to follow the cultural party-line that adolescence is a period where misbehavior is just to be expected. Mohler puts it this way:

Over the past several decades, adolescent psychologists have supplied the concept of the identity crisis as the therapeutic framework for expecting teenagers to misbehave. American Teen follows in this tradition. The general idea is that adolescent Sturm und Drang is just to

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Listen as J.I. Packer draws to a tight focus the central issue in regard to homosexuality, the Gospel itself. Dr. Packer makes a very lucid argument for why it is the very Gospel of Christ that is at stake when it comes to the issue of same-sex relationships.

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John McCormack of the Weekly Standard tells of the growing contradiction between Barack Obama - “the man of principle” and Barack Obama - “the politician searching for votes.”

McCormack: “During the past week, Obama has proven to be woefully ignorant of abortion law, or he has been deceiving voters about the legality of abortion, as well as his own position on the issue. . . . Are we really supposed to believe that Obama, the former editor of Harvard Law Review and onetime lecturer at the University of Chicago law school, doesn’t understand Roe v. Wade and a bill that he’s co-sponsoring?”

Full Article

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In Part One of my post, I talked about a day at the pool, while we were on our beach vacation. We were surrounded by girls and women who were wearing very revealing swimsuits. Let me just say that I am so thankful for my husband! Anytime one of these ladies would walk by, he would intentionally look at me, the kids, or the ground. To make things more relaxed and enjoyable for us all, though, I suggested that we leave the pool area and head to the beach, which was less crowded. As we walked down there (with me admittedly frustrated and pouting all the way), this warning sign caught my attention:

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There are few issues like politics that inspire question marks in the minds of Christians. Questions like, Do I vote for a candidate who is “pro-choice” when the other candidate is not only “pro-choice” but “pro-tax”, “pro-big government,” “pro-liberal social programs”, etc? Living in a society in which we are given the freedom to participate in the political process in turn demands that we learn to think through finding balance in how we cast our vote as a follower of Christ. Let’s face it, to abstain completely from voting because a candidate holds a view that you or me would consider to be “unchristian” will leave us with no candidate at all. A person with this …

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My family recently enjoyed our annual vacation to the beach. It is always such a wonderful time of relaxing on the beach and at the pool, refocusing on our family time, and enjoying God’s creation. We are so thankful for the blessing of being able to have this annual tradition!

However, this year, I must confess I was a little less thankful than usual. As we spent our first day at the pool, I was caught off-guard by the many women and girls whose swimsuits must have shrunk in the dryer before they came to the pool. I know that this is not a new problem, but we purposely schedule our vacation time during the off-times that are less crowded.

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In teaching this passage, I noted that a fundamental issue with the church today is directly connected with our understanding of what happens when a person becomes a follower of Christ. In other words, how do we know when someone becomes a Christian and, thus, part of the church universal? To Paul, it was clear that he took great confidence that the Church at Thessalonica was real and true (“chosen” by God, v.4) because they had clearly changed and everyone knew it. In fact, they were joyfully accepting abuse from people who didn’t like the fact that they had turned from worshiping idols (see I Thess.1:6). Therefore, the change that these people underwent was obvious, radical, and complete.

Are …

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A number of Evangelicals have jointly issued An Evangelical Manifesto. Here’s an excerpt:

All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of the surrounding

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Douglas Groothuis quotes evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin on the evolution-at-all-costs attitude present in much of modern science. Lewontin says,

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes

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