“It’s no wonder that this culture quickly becomes littered with enormous numbers of broken and now irreparable relationships. Politics itself becomes a new kind of religion, one without any means of acquiring redemption or forgiveness. Rather then seeing some people as right and others as mistaken, they are now regarded as the good and the evil, as true believers or heretics.” - Tim Keller

“The study found that 87% of evangelical clergy said they would encourage their congregants to seek help from a mental health professional when suffering from depression. (85% of Black Protestants, 97% of mainline Protestants and 99% of Catholics agreed.)” - RNS

“Over 16,000 baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in recent ceremonies” - CPost

“It may be hard to believe now, but funding wasn’t a primary part of the conversation—at least from the floor—when Southern Baptists approved the initial investigation in 2021. Approving the investigation itself took up the oxygen available in the packed Music City Center in Nashville.” - Baptist Press

“When the Episcopal Church recently announced cuts to its national staff, it was the latest in a long-running cycle among historic U.S. Protestant denominations…. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) also announced recent cuts to staff at its headquarters and in its global missions program.” - RNS

By Jonathan Moreno. From DBSJ 22 (2017): 75-90. Republished with permission. Read the series.

The Complexity of the Problem

Grappling with the problem of evil is a notoriously dubious endeavor due in part to the complexity of the problem. Therefore, if any viable solutions are to be reached, the specific kind of evil must be recognized and defined, and the theological system in which that evil resides must be identified.

“What I intend to do in this discussion is to take a fresh look at and break down the sacred-secular divide. I have a new idea that may cause us to think a little deeper about this critical topic in the theology of work.” - IFWE

“God isn’t just in life’s monumental things. He’s present in the little things: rain drops, the artistry of spider webs, and the sound of an acoustic guitar. A child’s laugh…. If we disregard these and thousands of other gifts, we don’t just fail to notice them, we fail to notice God.” - Randy Alcorn

“The first book is by far the richest for Christian devotion. Here Augustine distinguishes between things that should be ‘enjoyed’ (God alone) and those that should be ‘used’ (everything else, including Scripture, as a means to lead to God). He teaches his famous ordo amoris (order of loves)” - Churches Without Chests

“Is it just about using God’s name irreverently, or is there more to it?….the historical, linguistic, and theological dimensions of this command, including how it relates to bearing God’s name as His people.” - Word by Word

“Asserting the primacy of ‘identities and social norms’ leads to the dissatisfying explanation: ‘Because that is who they are and what they do.’ This invites the exasperated follow-up: ‘OK, but why is that who they are and what they do?’” - Current

Read the series.

Let me begin with a statement that will have to be defended, but which I think is difficult to argue against:

Nowhere does the OT tell us that the New covenant is only intended for Israel.

“I try to suggest in the book that the struggle between wanting to know, curiosity, and wanting not to know, which is a resistance to knowledge, that those two forces are present in our minds all the time.” - L&L

“around 3 in 5 U.S. congregations say their current financial health is either good (35%) or excellent (26%). Another 28% say they are tight but able to manage. Only around 1 in 10 say they have some difficulty (8%) or serious difficulty (3%).” - Lifeway

“…believers are increasingly prioritizing small group gatherings over traditional Sunday church attendance. This shift raises important questions about the role of corporate worship, discipleship, and the future of the local church” - C.Leaders

“Is there a singer or musician in your church who is hungry to glorify God as they lead in corporate worship? Or do your members need to be taught that they’re all ‘part of the choir’? 9Marks asked a couple of pastors who have thought a lot about corporate worship for book recommendations.” - 9 Marks

“The difficulty of walking by faith based on His commands and principles often leads to mysticism taking hold in both the culture and the church, for example in the nature-focused ‘enchantment movement.’ One needn’t dive into ‘enchantment’ to spot popular—yet equally suspect—methods of seeking God’s will” - BJU Seminary

“So one thing we all need to do is ask ourselves, What is my study of theology resulting in in me? How is how is this changing me? How is it affecting me? Am I growing and is that demonstrated by the way I’m relating to my brothers and sisters in Christ” - TGC

“So, which is better? General revelation needs specific revelation to make it truly comprehensible.” - P&D

“Over the years, the prayer has often been attributed to other Christian writers, including Thomas Aquinas, Augustine and Francis of Assisi. Many people might be surprised to discover that, far from being penned in an ancient European monastery, the Serenity Prayer was written less than a century ago in a cottage in western Massachusetts.” - RNS

“Baptism has a marginal role in this picture. Yet baptism is central to the Christian life: commanded by Jesus, taught by the apostles, and honored, practiced, and contemplated from church fathers like Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Jerusalem through Protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. So why does baptism rank so low among these students’ spiritual concerns?” - CToday

“They want to commit to a cause. They want purpose. And they can no longer exist in a flattened, disenchanted existence that is deadening. They desire meaning, the kind increasingly found in traditional Christianity.” - CPost

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

The third front in our three-front war, according to the common saying, is “the devil.” In the Old Testament he’s called Hasatan, the adversary; in the New, ho diabolos, the accuser (literally, the one who throws things through you). The biblical description clearly presents him as a person, someone who makes accusations (Job 1) and seeks “whom he may devour” (1P 5.8).

“By margins of at least 10 percentage points, Americans are less likely now than they were in 2017 to say there’s too little emphasis on encouraging girls to … Do well in school (27% now vs. 43% in 2017) … Be leaders (38% vs. 53%)… Stand up for themselves (41% vs. 54%)” - Pew

“In the last few days untold numbers of Christians and minority groups have been massacred by Syrian security forces. The violence is reported to have begun as retaliation against Alawites loyal to the former president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.” - EPM

Also: Persecution in Syria and the World - Breakpoint

“…most of those celebrating may not care too much about who Saint Patrick was, nor the story of his conversion and devotion to the gospel that impacted not just Ireland, but all of Western civilization.” - IFWE

“SPHEREx is trying to find out what caused the Big Bang. If they really want to get at the origins of the universe, they might want to add something to their list. We know that something cannot come from nothing.” - James Emery White

“Whether you agree with Mahmoud Khalil’s political stance or not should be irrelevant. Free speech for me but not for thee is a dangerous position, even for those currently on the side of ‘me’ and not ‘thee.’” - John Ellis

My earliest memory of a “witch” is of a pretty young lady named Samantha making magical things happen by twitching her nose with a quirky sound effect. It was the 1964 sitcom, “Bewitched.” We watched the reruns over and over. Another childhood memory is of the cackling crone in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, who left hair pins in her wake whenever she ran. I later learned she also had a name: Witch Hazel.

And who in my generation could forget “I’m melting… melting!” in the Wizard of Oz?

“Dog birthday parties are indeed very telling of our changing view of having children. Why does this matter? God loves people, and even after the fall He sees new human life as a beautiful thing. ” - P&D