Faith: April 2024 Archives
The Christian Canary Dying in the Coal Mine That Is India - The Stream
"Secret No. 2: a significant portion of North-East India is predominantly Christian. The mostly mountainous region of eight states and over 200 tribes experienced an unprecedented explosion of Christianity in the early part of the 20th century.
"Missiologists and anthropologists agree that the Gospel has been the "single most important catalyst" revolutionizing the North-East tribals in every area, from literacy to the emancipation of women.
"Most remarkably, even though it was Western missionaries who brought Christianity to the tribes, the churches of North-East India are fiercely independent and proudly indigenous, blending their own treasured heritage with the import of Western music and culture.
"Throw a stone in Nagaland, Mizoram or Meghalaya and it will hit a quartet of Christians singing hymns in four-part harmony."
The Queering of the SBC - Center for Baptist Leadership
Jared Moore writes: "In a 2019 interview with Apologia Radio, Butterfield said that if she were still living a lesbian lifestyle today and were trying to repent, theologians and pastors who teach that same-sex attraction is not sin would have prevented her from doing so: 'I don't know how it would have gone for me today, because ... in working out what it means to have the indwelling sin of homosexuality, I would be told that it wasn't a sin at all; or I would be told it's only a sin if you act on it.'...
Moore discusses a long list of SBC leaders and influencers who have departed from Biblical truth on this question: Preston Sprinkle, Nate Collins, Karen Swallow Prior, David Prince, Patrick Schreiner, Sam Allberry. He points to analysis by New Testament Professor Robert A. Gagnon, showing that "a child's social environment greatly increases or decreases his or her chances of developing same-sex desires."
"The queering of the SBC--and all of conservative American Christianity--is a major problem. It appears that in a misguided effort to be winsome to the world, we have allowed leaders and ministries to advance unbiblical teaching that undermines God's good plan for human sexuality and even celebrates the embrace of sexual immorality in the lives of professing Christians and the church. In our sexually confused and sinful day and age, what the lost need most is courage and clarity, not compromise."
Song Review Index | The Berean Test
Vince Wright analyzes popular songs used in Christian worship to see whether they reflect the teaching of Scripture and properly focus attention on God and His glory. Some of his guiding principles are idiosyncratic -- he rates doctrinally sound hymns like "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" as "PERHAPS" for use in corporate worship because their poetic language might be off-putting to visitors -- but he invites respectful debate about the conclusions he reaches. In his review of "10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord, O My Soul)," Wright overlooks the most annoying thing about the song, which you can find discussed here by Christopher Malapati: The constant shifting of referents for 2nd and 3rd persons, sometimes within a single line. (Is "your" referring to God or my soul?) Malapati proposes a fix, which is close to what I sing.
