September 2015

If Indiana University is the alma mater (lit. "nursing mother"), not just of her students, but also the town and county that surround her, it's time to bite the hand that feeds us.

Living in Sodom and Gomorrah can inure us to wickedness, so in the interest of waking God's people up...

Indiana University's latest president, Michael McRobbie (pictured), just announced a capital campaign on the occasion of IU's bicentennial. The announcement was made at a "celebration" held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. There a large gift was also announced to spur on the campaign. President McRobbie and his fellow administrators set their goal at $2.5 billion...

When my wife attended Wheaton College, one thing she didn't like was what she termed the "whiny-voiced worship leaders." Let me describe the phenomenon in a bit more detail, as I'm sure you've experienced it, too. She was talking about the man-boy who raises the pitch of his voice in order to communicate the depth of the emotion he is feeling. Trying to look "rugged" and doing his best 90's female angsty pop star impersonation—think Alanis Morissette singing "You Oughta Know"—this guy is perpetually trying to use emotional prosody and poor singing technique to convince us of how authentic his deep, deep feelings of passionate love for God are. His voice is  tight and pinched giving the perpetual impression that he is on the edge of being overcome by emotion. Never mind that all he actually manages to convey is the sense that he forgot to use the restroom before he got on stage. He is "so humbled to be standing brokenly in front of us," and he "just wants to invite us to join him" in his whiny-voiced worship...

Article continues at Christ Church Cincinnati's site. 

If you aren't reading about it, maybe you should. But then again, maybe not. Ad blocking, that is. Apple's new iOS 9 allows ad blocking which, everyone's saying, will be profoundly disruptive for internet as we know it. I've read some on the subject and get it that Apple, Google, and FB are in a war to the death. Believing in competition, I don't mind. The only hope for education is public school systems having to face competition, but that's the whole point of the Democratic Party—to keep teachers from facing competition for our tax dollars. Everything else about Democrats is window dressing. Take a look at any crowd shots at their national convention and you'll see every last person there is your high school guidance counselor or social studies teacher.

Last night three pastors from three churches and one elder were discussing our policy going forward in the post-Obergefell world and we found ourselves wishing some one state—just one, puhleese!—would refuse to allow homosexual marriage so our people could do destination weddings there. It would sort of be like the old days when people flew to Las Vegas to get married and divorced because Nevada's marriage and divorce laws were so bad. But opposite: this state would host destination wedding because its marriage laws are so good simply by denying SCOTUS's usurpation of "we the people's" Constitution.

True story: back in the first church I served, the Nominating Committee nominated a woman for the eldership...

Feminists have been beating on the Fatherhood of God for quite some time now. Their hatred for God our Father has sunk so deep that fatherhood itself is seen as unnecessary, at best, or destructively oppressive, at worst. The sickness of our homes, our churches, and our culture can be tied back to this throwing off of God's Fatherhood and the corresponding fatherhood of men. It is nothing less than a rejection of all authority and a loss of the blessings that come with fatherhood: protection, governance, and love. Our daughters defend our country; our wives govern our homes; and our children rebel without any knowledge of the severe love of their father. The damage has been done, but our Father in heaven still rules. He makes things alive even and especially after they die. Such is our prayer for our homes, our churches, and our culture. 

To that end, please help us spread the word about A Conference on Fatherhood with Tim Bayly, September 25-26, at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg, SC...

A Conference on Fatherhood with Tim Bayly

There is no higher calling for a man than to be a father, and yet we despise fatherhood. You, me, our culture—we don’t like dads. In fact, we hate them. We don’t ever want to be them. Where does that come from? How do we fix it? If there was ever a time to pray that the Lord would “return the hearts of fathers to their children,” it is now...

Son Joseph over at the blog of the Cincinnati church plant he serves, Christ Church, has written an excellent post that begins...