As my church's Finance Committee chairman, the article about The Backlash Against Tithing (also here) certainly hits home. It's something I deal with all the time, especially at budget season. At one time in evangelical churches, people tithed first and then gave offerings on top of that. Today people are more likely to mentally allocate …
A Special Thanksgiving Verse
Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. (Proverbs 3:9, 10) The special opening sentence for Thanksgiving from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.
Some Things Look Great on Paper. And Then…
Zack has an interesting response to my posting More on the Fairness of God, both on this blog and on his own Mutantcheez. Let me respond in turn to a couple of his comments. Paul goes on to talk in the letter about how Abraham is considered righteous based on his faith in God, and …
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What Will American Christianity Do After the Baby Boomers?
What should churches start doing, given Wuthnow's findings? My answer would be that they should redistribute energy. When we think of all the time and energy that churches invest in children, youth and their parents, and when we think of the high level of clout exercised by senior church members, it's clear that young adults …
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On the Value of American Missions, Dollar and Otherwise
Abu Daoud is absolutely correct in his response concerning the impact of the falling US Dollar on American missions: The weakening dollar will have a bad effect on world missions, by the way. It will become more difficult for the US to send out as many missionaries as it does today. Working as I do …
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The Class Dilemma of the Edwards Campaign
The news report put out by the Carolina Week staff (video below) and the attempt by John Edwards' campaign to get it pulled shows the dilemma that every candidate that runs on the left has in dealing with the "contradictions" (as Mao Dun would put it) in advancing their cause. Conventional wisdom would have us …
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Oral Roberts Says Devil Won’t Steal ORU
Oral Roberts says that the Devil won't steal ORU. Just don't give it away...
From Pentecost to Liturgy and Back
My friend Robert Easter at Sanctifusion has thrown me some very deep questions in the course of a discussion: I was talking about you to a young man who is in the process of shifting form Church of God to Anglican. Something about the ancient ties and the Nicene writers. When we look at it, …
Unveiling men in the Arab world
Sami Moubayed's article Unveiling men in the Arab world is one of those rare admissions from a (presumably) Muslim source that things are not quite in the altogether within Islam. It makes me think of the following, in this case relative to the Jews: For, if there was a glory in the religion that involved …
What Do I Need?
There is something about being human that craves a “comfort zone.” We all just naturally want to be able to say, “I understand this,” or “I can handle that.” To be ablaze with the Holy Spirit brings us very quickly to say, “I can't, Lord, but You can!” This violates our pride, and, while pride …
Positive Infinity 