Faith: May 2008 Archives
The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention - Google Book Search
By James C. Hefley. "The book is helpful to anyone who wishes to understand how a major church body was turned in a more conservative direction by a grassroots movement that got out the vote to defeat one of the most powerful religious establishments in America."
Divine Vinyl: Turned On To Jesus - purgatorio
The latest collection of odd and intriguing Christian record album covers, this time including a bio and photo of pencil-thin-mustachioed Bill Bright on the sleeve of a 45 of one of his talks.
Puritan Library | Puritan Books, Online Resources & Links
A wealth of devotional and theological literature from the English and Scottish evangelical tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries: Links to online books by over 40 authors (including John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, Richard Baxter, John Owen), to books available for purchase, and to blogs, podcasts, and scholarly papers about the Puritans. There's even a 16-session audio course on the history and theology of the Puritans by J. I. Packer. (Via BaylyBlog: "Forget most things published today and download these men. It will cost you nothing.")
The Marrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher
A book from the 1640s about faith, works, law, and assurance of salvation was rediscovered in the early 1700s, becoming a source of controversy. In 1720, it was condemned by the Church of Scotland as antinomian and heretical.
The pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York on the "most crying need in the church" -- being effectively present in our largest cities: "Christians strengthen somewhat away from the cities and they have made some political gains, but that is not effecting cultural products much. It is because in the center cities (NYC, Boston, LA, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC) the percentages of people living and working there who are Christians are minuscule." (Via JollyBlogger.)
Crummy Church Signs: It's sort of a 50:50 relationship
It's Rev. Wes Kinney Day at Crummy Church Signs. Kinney is a blogger, a frequent contributor to Crummy Church Signs, and the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Valliant, Okla.
Daniel Radosh's Rapture Ready! - By Hanna Rosin - Slate Magazine
"A Christian friend who'd grown up totally sheltered once wrote to me that the first time he heard a Top 40 station he was horrified, and not because of the racy lyrics: 'Suddenly, my lifelong suspicions became crystal clear,' he wrote. 'Christian subculture was nothing but a commercialized rip-off of the mainstream, done with wretched quality and an apocryphal insistence on the sanitization of reality.'" (Via Dawn Eden.)
InsideCatholic.com - Meeting Reverend John Hagee
In the comments, Catholic convert Deal Hudson defines the issue that "pushed [him] away from evangelicalism": "When I was a Southern Baptist I experienced a lack of appreciation, even hostility, toward my desire to study philosophy, the arts, music, novels, all of the best that culture had to offer." (Via Rod Dreher.)
