But what if, instead, humans were image bearers of God in their essence, as the scripture says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And, yes, sin has tainted all of that. It is a deadly cancer eroding its host and will end in death if it is not taken away. But […]
A central tenet of kinism seems to be that God wants people to keep themselves within strict ethnic groupings. Were this so, one would expect the Lord to have mentioned this some place in the Scriptures. Not only is there no such mention, but the Bible explicitly teaches that ethnic and tribal identity are utterly beside the point when it comes to one's relationship to God.
…marriage is too significant a union and too important a covenant to undermine it by robbing it of its honorability. We dishonor marriage when we promote the idea that anything goes, and that we need to tolerate anything and all that a spouse may do to offend and violate covenant responsibilities. When we witness then […]
The problem with this misconception, however, is the way it frames the issue. It is suggestive that our default position should be a posture of suspicion toward the victims—as if the norm is that people lie about their pastors and the accuser is probably yet another person who just hates the church.
“In my research for my forthcoming book, [Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church (Zondervan, 2022)] I was a bit surprised to discover how many people think that the harm caused by spiritual abuse is a distant second (or even third) to other kinds of abuse (whether physical or sexual). “Indeed, […]
“We come now to #3 in the series: “Spiritual abuse is not in the Bible or church history—it’s just a modern psychological construct.” “A number of folks may balk at the idea of spiritual abuse solely on the grounds that the terminology itself is relatively modern. If it does not appear in the Bible (or […]
Across the board, folks regularly expressed the idea that authoritarian, domineering pastors must be linked to a church polity that is either non-existent or underdeveloped. Thus, independent churches, it is thought, must be the prime breeding ground for bully pastors. But the reality on the ground doesn’t bear this out.
When it comes to the issue of abuse, it’s been a rough stretch for the church. While we might hope for the church to respond like Nehemiah (Neh 1:6-7), strangely, there’s also been another reaction afoot.
The question comes concerning the relations between Theonomy and the Federal Vision. There is reason to think that there is some connection between the two movements. several well-known theonomists are also proponents of the FV. One of the FV leaders recently described the current FV controversy as a renewal of the theonomy argument. Interpreters on […]