There’s a simple test of whether a question is objective or ideologically loaded. It’s what, in 1994, the political psychologist Phil Tetlock termed the turnabout test: imagine the opposite of your question. If it sounds loaded, your original phrase probably is, too. Consequently, if the premise of a study is to look at something like... Continue Reading

“The utopian idea if you come to Christ and if you go through our program, you’re going to be immediately set free from attraction or anything you’re struggling with, I don’t think that’s a Christian idea,” Moore told journalists. “Faithfulness to Christ means obedience to Christ. It does not necessarily mean that someone’s attractions are... Continue Reading

“For decades China’s house churches tended to despise denominations but that has been changing rapidly as they face the need for institutional structure and better church practices in order to support the work of the ministry–defending the faith, practicing discipline, training up the children, ordaining ministers, sending out missionaries, and so on. Interestingly, their quest... Continue Reading

“I was raised to revere missionaries and support them. Over the years, many of my friends in the medical profession have given their time and talents to missionary hospitals around the globe. It never occurred to me that someone might consider medical missionaries to be pressuring “their patients, at moments of maximum vulnerability and desperation,... Continue Reading

In most mainline seminaries today candidates for faculty positions who are known to have published in favor of the scriptural and orthodox position on male-female marriage will not be hired. It is even less likely that candidates for faculty positions in secular colleges and universities will be hired. After all, institutions of higher learning cannot... Continue Reading

They felt their churches offered superficial answers to life’s difficult questions: Churches did not address questions like creation v evolution, sexuality, reliability of the Bible, purpose of life, etc. Messages were bland, shallow, irrelevant, and boring….Ages 14-17 were decisive: Most embraced unbelief in the high school years.   What leads people away from religion and into atheism?... Continue Reading

We noted together that universities specialize in small and medium-sized questions, and have largely removed the big questions from consideration, except in philosophy or perhaps classics. The logic of academic specialization means that we have our disciplinary logics, ground rules, and accepted theories that define what we count as proper. Academics have no higher allegiance... Continue Reading

I didn’t do this to satisfy them,” Parker said of critics. “I did it because it was not serving Houston.” Parker’s administration already had withdrawn its request for some of the pastors’ sermons, which proved a particular flashpoint, and the clergy said Tuesday she seemed to be considering whether to remove the subpoenas altogether.  ... Continue Reading

Satan and our flesh work in concert tempting us to find satisfaction to our needs in places outside of God. The greedy man seeks contentment outside of God by striving to gain and hoard money. The insecure wife may seek security from her husband and others by serving them endlessly in order to feel a... Continue Reading

“I assure you that the reality on the ground in West Africa is worse than the worst report you’ve seen,” he said. “And our attention and our efforts need to be on loving the people there, on praying for them the way that so many of you prayed for me.” He urged followers of Christ to... Continue Reading