Here is a lengthy discussion between Bart Ehrman and N.T. Wright concerning God and the problem of evil. Go here for the post.

[ht:Jeff Cate]

The Compass Direct News guys have posted the following story concerning the persecuted church in Indonesia. Here is an excerpt.

JAKARTA, May 6 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists and local government authorities last week threatened to tear down a church building under construction in North Sumatra even though church leaders met requirements of Indonesia’s draconian law on worship places, the church’s pastor said. Emboldened by local authorities’ unwillingness to grant a church building permit to Protestant Bataks Christian Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan, or HKBP), some 100 Muslim extremists accompanied by government officials on April 29 tried to destroy the building under construction in Jati Makmur village, North Binjai, 22 kilometers (14 miles) from the provincial capital of Medan. The Rev. Monang Silaban, HKBP pastor, said about 100 members of the Islamic extremist Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defender Front), some armed with “sharp weapons,” arrived at 4:30 p.m. accompanied by Binjai municipal officials, who brought a bulldozer. Police met with church and Muslim extremist group leaders following the confrontation and reached an agreement that construction on the building would cease until the permit is approved – something that hasn’t happened in the two years since HKBP applied.

Go here for the full story. Remember to visit TheUnknownChurch.com and pray for the persecuted church.

[ht:CD]

Unlike the Parchment and Pen guys, I am not an American Idol fan. However, I have recently become a moderate “Britain’s Got Talent” fan thanks to Paul Potts. Potts was a mobile car phone salesman who had a voice that could break cedar. His audition on the show was dramatic because he presented himself as an ordinary guy. Singing opera is no ordinary feat. Thus, expectations of Paul were quite low. These changed drastically for me only a few bars into Nessun Dorma. Out of this simple and scared man emerged power, grace, and beauty in the form of song.

Even though the outcome of the audition was to make much of Mr. Potts, I could not help but reflect upon Paul’s refrain in 2 Corinthians 4.

2 Cor. 4:7-11 (ESV)
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. [8] We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; [9] persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; [10] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. [11] For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

The power, grace, and beauty of the gospel emerges from unlikely sources. There is little regal about Paul’s (the apostle) description of the bearers of the gospel of Christ. In the Corinthians passage, the “life of Jesus” is manifested in the brokenness and frailty of those afflicted for Christ. The surpassing power of the gospel appears clearly in the broken lives of the persecuted yet profoundly affectionate followers of Jesus. The beautiful music that Paul Potts sings is a token echo of the goodness, mercy, grace, wisdom, and power that emanates from the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is sung by the Savior through the afflicted lives of his saints.

Please pray for the persecuted church!

To have some idea of what I am talking about, you might have a listen to Mr Potts in the clip below.

For those interested (and I hope that you all are), you may sign up for the Combat Human Trafficking monthly newsletter by clicking here and following the instructions.

80 evangelical leaders have released what they are calling an Evangelical Manifesto.

Among other items, the signers criticize professing Christians to the right and left of the political “aisle” concerning the politicization of the faith perhaps to the demise of the central message of the gospel. The opening statement of the summary reads as follows:

Keenly aware of this hour of history, we as a representative group of Evangelicals in America address our fellow-believers and our fellow-citizens.ii We have two purposes: to clarify the confusions that surround the term Evangelical in the United States, and to explain where we stand on issues that cause consternation over Evangelicals in public life.
The global era challenges us to learn how to live with our deepest differences—especially religious differences that are ultimate and irreducible. These are not just differences between personal worldviews but between entire ways of life co-existing in the same society.

The group identifies itself as evangelical, which has been used broadly for people like John Piper (a confessed Calvinist) as well as Clark Pinnock (a professed Open Theist). The singers attempt to define the word as follows in their opening summation.

Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. (The Greek word for good news was euangelion, which translated into English as evangel.) This Evangelical principle is the heart of who we are as followers of Jesus. It is not unique to us. We assert it not to attack or to exclude, but to remind and to reaffirm, and so to rally and to reform.
Evangelicals are one of the great traditions in the Christian Church. We stand alongside Christians of other traditions in both the creedal core of faith and over many issues of public concern. Yet we also hold to Evangelical beliefs that are distinct—distinctions we affirm as matters of biblical truth, recovered by the Protestant Reformation and vital for a sure knowledge of God. We Evangelicals are defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally.

In identifying themselves they display their intentional political separation with either right or left. The document is bound to trigger much discussion and even controversy. Read the summary here. Read the entire document here. There is also a study guide that you can download from here.

Another excellent Piper clip! I hope that all of my preacher brethren are encouraged and affirmed by it.

JT posted the following:

Desiring God has now posted new audio and video of John Piper’s 5-hour seminar exegetically unpacking the theology of the 5 points of Calvinism.

This series of lectures is extremely accessible and helpful. Enjoy!

[ht:JT]

Russ Moore offered a vigorous critique of Brian Mclaren’s comments at the Willow Creek Community Church. Here is an excerpt from his remarks.

“When a Christian understands that he does not fight for his own honor, but that justice will be done by God, either through union with Christ and His cross or at the judgment itself, the Christian is freed then to trust God, not his sword or his gun or his fists or his tongue,” he said. “It is McLaren’s vision of a life that consists only of the justice achieved in this era that leads to violence and Darwinian struggle to see that a pound of flesh is exacted.

“It is the kind of world that McLaren envisions, without a messianic hope of a second coming, that leads to the bloody utopian experiments we have seen throughout the twentieth century. If human beings do not expect a Messiah in the skies, they will expect to elect one or anoint one or biochemically engineer one. And, do not be deceived, such pseudo-Messiahs always eventually have a sword.”

Go here for the entire post.

[ht:BP]

Russ Moore, Senior Vice President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has posted an interesting article on Southern Baptist attitudes, particularly as they apply to sexual ethics. Here is an excerpt.

The central point of the article is that Southern Baptists accomodate ourselves quite easily to the ambient culture’s redefinitions of the family, just twenty or thirty years behind everybody else. We rail against a decadent culture, but only those aspects of the culture that we haven’t yet adopted. Just look at the difference between the way we speak of gender reassignment surgery versus the way we speak of divorce. Could it be that the difference between the two modes of discourse is because we have fewer transgendered deacons and Sunday school teachers than divorced ones? Or, worse, could it be because divorce now seems “normal” to us?

Moore “fleshes” his toughts out further in a forthcoming issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology contains an article he writes, entitled “Southern Baptist Sexual Revolutionaries: Cultural Accomodation, Spiritual Conflict, and the Baptist Vision of the Family.”

[ht:RM]

Could it be? The 9Marks guys have provided a series of Sunday School lessons on what it means to live together as a church in their latest 9Marks eJournal [pdf]. Here are the sessions:

• Introduction
• Church Membership
• Preaching
• Corporate Prayer
• Church Government
• Fellowship
• Discontentment
• Church Leadership
• Church Discipline
• Encouragement
• Serving and Giving
• Worship
• Corporate Evangelism

These all look extremely helpful and will be welcome by many who are longing for a clear and biblically concise ecclesiology for their people.

[ht:JT]