Peggy Spencer Head 1937-2006

peggy.jpgMy half-sister, Peggy Ann Spencer Head, passed away this week, and our family just returned from the funeral. Peggy was more like an aunt or a cousin to me, but we always had a warm relationship. Her oldest son, David Head, has been a wonderful friend and colaborer in ministry for many years. I was honored to attend the service and I grieve with and for her family. I especially grieve with her husband of 49 years, Leo, whose genuine, unashamed grief is a reminder of the truth of Christ that lives in the oneness of marriage.

Peggy was more than 20 years older than me, and the fact that my father was the father who had left her as a girl made it impossible for us to have a relationship in anything other than distant terms. But Peggy was the pianist at my home church for 35 years, and her family was deeply involved in everything about the church as I grew up and entered ministry. So we spent much time around each other, and shared a relationship in the church that I’ll always treasure.Continue reading “Peggy Spencer Head 1937-2006”

Alastair Represents Wright; Ascol Calls for Truth

Paul for Everyone: Romans: Chapters 9-16 (for Everyone)Alastair at Adversaria has written a detailed, important and comprehensive post on Why is Wright Misrepresented and Misunderstood by so many of his Reformed Critics? It’s a monster of good post that you must read if you are interested in Bishop Wright’s contribution to theology and the judgement of many in the reformed community that Wright is a heretic on many different doctrines.

Alastair has made Wright a major component of his studies, but he has also analyzed the responses to Wright. Of course, he will be savaged for saying that some Wright critics are in over their heads and for other blunt assessments. Alastair isn’t a polemicist. He’s a calm and reasonable voice in the blogosphere. His indictment of the misrepresentation of Wright is going to be controversial. Coming out at the very moment that John Piper has announced his intention to take down Wright’s view of justification, it’s an important post.

Opposition to Wright is rapidly becoming a badge of reformed orthodoxy. Is that the correct road? Alastair says no. Read for yourself.

Read: Why is Wright Misrepresented and Misunderstood by so many of his Reformed Critics?

Meanwhile, Director of Founder’s Ministries Tom Ascol shoots straight at the misrepresentation of SBC pastors who spoke against a resolution requiring all SBC leaders to be teetotalers (a resolution aimed squarely at those who use wine in communion and believe the Bible’s message of moderation.) At the end, Ascol says what this web site has said repeatedly:

What was the conservative resurgence all about? Was it not a fight to recover full commitment to the authority and accuracy of the Bible as the Word of God written? I say this reverently but with genuine concern as one who loves and seeks the welfare of the SBC: What difference does it make whether or not we have an inerrant Bible if our leaders are allowed to ignore and violate its teachings and to do so in the very public forum of our denominational journal? We have every right to expect more from champions of inerrancy.

The Man Behind the Curtain: Lesslie Newbigin (SATIRE!)

newbigin.jpgBHT fellow and soon to be philosophy professor Joel Hunter penned this stinging piece of satire (that’s SATIRE) about the man who really needs to be held responsible for all these postmodern, missional, contemplative woes. It’s missionary statesman and missional thinker Lesslie Newbigin. Read and be shocked. (SATIRE AHEAD.)

While we’re measuring one another for our ability to prevent heresy, we might as well throw Lesslie Newbigin under the bus, too exercise discernment and offer honest criticism of Lesslie Newbigin’s teaching, too. After all, he’s a big part of this whole truth-denying, heresy-coddling, postmodern revisionism that the gospel is something other than cultural confrontation. He actually thought that missiology had to adjust in light of the increasing pluralization of Western society. Well, let’s just discern this little chap, shall we?Continue reading “The Man Behind the Curtain: Lesslie Newbigin (SATIRE!)”

What Do I Mean by Post-Evangelical?

My son Clay asked me the other day, “What do you mean by post-evangelical?” That deserves a good answer.

Let’s start with this: By evangelical, I do not mean, as some on the Internet have labored to prove, a line of Christianity extending from the Reformation through Calvinism to a handful of modern day independent Baptist fundamentalists. Nor do I mean, as Lutherans have the perfect right to historically assert, that Lutheranism has the right to the term evangelicalism.

Instead, I mean evangelicalism as a twentieth century movement meeting the following qualifications:

1. Protestant, even strongly anti-Catholic
2. Baptistic, even in its non-Baptist form
3. Shaped by the influence of Billy Graham and his dominance as an symbol and leader
4. Shaped by the influence of Southern Baptist dominance in the conception of evangelism
5. Influenced by revivalism and the ethos of the Second Great Awakening
6. Open to the use of technology
7. Oriented around individualistic pietism and a vision of individualistic Christianity
8. Committed to church growth as the primary evidence of evangelism
9. Committed to missions as a concept and a calling, but less as a methodology
10. Asserting Sola scriptura, but largely unaware of the influence of its own traditions
11. Largely anti-intellectual and populist in its view of education
12. Traditionally conservative on social, political and cultural issues
13. Anti- Creedal, reluctantly confessional
14. Revisionist toward Christian history in order to establish its own historical legitimacy
15. Attempting, and largely failing, to establish a non-fundamentalist identity
16. A low view of the sacraments and sacramental theology
17. A dispensational eschatology, revolving around the rapture and apocalyptic views of immanent last daysContinue reading “What Do I Mean by Post-Evangelical?”

Driscoll Reruns

markd.jpgSince Mark Driscoll clearly bothers some people to the point of issuing ultimatums and accusations that are utterly fantastic- like claiming Driscoll started Emergent and is to blame for all its worst tendencies- I’ll rerun my piece on “Why Mark Driscoll Bothers You,” plus a few other relevant oldies but goodies.

Read “Why Mark Driscoll Bothers You…or Doesn’t.”

Here’s my review of Driscoll’s “Confessions of a Reformission Rev.”

I take a look at the Fundamentalist encounter with “Seattle” type culture in “High Culture, Low Lifes and Judgement in the Household of God.”

And here’s Van Til’s Interview with the Director of the Hyles-Anderson-Rice-Jones Institute, an operation we’re still hearing from.

I think the t-shirt crowd needs to go ahead and start selling, “You’re Not One of Us……Just Because.” Or “We don’t like you…we really don’t like you!”

The Tactics of Failure: Why The Culture War Makes Sense To Spiritually Empty Evangelicals

crossrwb.jpgAnn Out Of Place

This afternoon I listened to Ann Coulter being interviewed on TBN. Not CNN. TBN. The Paul Crouch/Jan Crouch fashion show and soap opera that you can’t look away from. Yes, that TBN. The one with Creflo, Joel, General Joyce, Kenneth and Gloria, Kim, Matt and hundreds of very, very uncool people with shocking attractions to hair-styles from other planets.

There sat Ann Coulter, blonde babe darling of the hardcore far right, loathed and hated enemy of all things liberal, author of the new hit Godless, a book I haven’t read, but whose reviews tell me is an assault on the left as the “anti-God” side in American politics. There sat Ann on the same couch as hundreds of Pentecostal preachers and well-dress Apostles to America’s women, talking to Paul Crouch, Jr.

There has been a bit of a blogosphere dust-up regarding exactly what Ann’s religious commitments might be. Based on my limited knowledge, it appears to me that Ann is either a cradle Christian occasionally returning to church or one who is in what some evangelicals might call modest “seeker” mode, though she certainly seems sold on some aspects of historic, orthodox Christianity. She’s read more than a few things, articulates the content very well, but when she gets to the experiential side, she seems, shall we say, somewhat less than convincing.Continue reading “The Tactics of Failure: Why The Culture War Makes Sense To Spiritually Empty Evangelicals”

Imonk to Itunes?

UPDATE: I believe I will have an iTunes feed shortly. When someone gets it, let me know.

The IM/BHT web sites are currently in a technical geek crunch. (That means the guys who help me are just not able to help much at present.)

So, I would love to have the podcasts on iTunes, and I know there is a WordPress plug-in for that, but I have no idea how to put it in. If you are extremely confident and competent to do the work, and would be willing to be paid in heaven, not on earth, contact me at MichaelATinternetmonkDOTcom.