Translating “congregation” instead of “church,” “superior” instead of “priest,” and “repentance” instead of “penance” was to have potentially huge consequences on the Church’s doctrine. For example, penance implied an action performed by the sinner for the remission of his or her sins, but repentance could simply be an admission of guilt and turning of the... Continue Reading

This past October, a delegation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) visited Pastor Brunson. Brunson, who has lost considerable weight from the stress of constant confinement, had a clear message to the delegation: do not forget me. Brunson, a North Carolina native, has spent over 20 years ministering to Christians in Turkey, a... Continue Reading

In an HLN exclusive interview with Carol Costello, Costi Hinn described growing up in the Hinn family as a hybrid of being a “royal family” (lavish riches) and the “mafia” (strict enforcement of the mafia). “You keep to your own, you defend your own. You never, ever, regardless of what the truth might be, do... Continue Reading

But at that moment, there was something about hearing the words, in the King James Version, as old and familiar to me as my own security blanket: “And the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.” It hit me that this was my problem: I was sore afraid.  ... Continue Reading

“Children adoption cases have been a thorny issue in American politics, with religious agencies in various states asking to be allowed to operate by their beliefs and retain the right to refuse placing children into the homes of same-sex couples.”   A Kentucky Family Court judge who earlier this year said he cannot hear adoption... Continue Reading

The problem here, aside from the shell game of politics and theology, is timing. When Keller adopted evangelicalism as his identity, did he really not know that Billy Graham, the poster-boy for post-World War II neo-evangelicalism and a board member at Keller’s seminary, Gordon-Conwell, had conducted religious services in the White House for Richard Nixon?... Continue Reading

My salvation experience occurred on Christmas Eve. It was 1982. I was attending a special worship service at a small church in Vietnam. The pastor, Ho Hieu Ha, delivered a message many Christians would find familiar: Christmas is not about the gifts we carefully wrap and place under a tree. Rather, it is about the... Continue Reading

Fix the system, not just the problem. Once the problem has been resolved, go the extra mile and ask yourself, “was this really a completely unpreventable problem, or is this a systems issue?” Chances are something in your current system produced the result. As you know, your system is perfectly designed to get the results it’s currently getting,... Continue Reading

God’s Word teaches that open rebuke is better than hidden love, though. James 5:29states, “Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” We are told in the first verse of Galatians 6: “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any... Continue Reading

Athanasius’s stalwart defense of the full divinity of Christ in a world that was rapidly moving into a more rational direction earned him the epitaph Athanasius contra mundum (Athanasius against the world). This doesn’t mean he was the only dissenting voice. He had many named and unnamed supporters: his Egyptian flock, the monks who publicly backed and... Continue Reading