4 Dosturbing Trends in the Contemopary Church

(Michael Horton) According to several studies, American evangelicals generally do not know what they believe and why they believe it. Consequently, most share with the wider culture a confidence in human goodness and a weak view of the need for God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ. According to these reports, most evangelicals believe that we are saved by being good and that there are many ways of salvation apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ.
Here are a few of the disturbing trends that need to be checked and reformed in contemporary church life:

1. We are all too confident in our own words  (MORE)

Trying (and failing) to Make Sense of Postmodernim

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) -- Once upon a time if a person sincerely believed he or she was born the wrong sex, the person would be deemed to have a psychological disorder, urged to seek psychiatric help. Not anymore.

These days if a person believes he or she was born the wrong sex, the person is encouraged to live out whatever is believed to be true. Not only that, the person is further encouraged to correct nature's mistake by undergoing radical, reconstructive surgery and hormone therapy.

This is one of the best illustrations of how postmodern thought and its subjective nature has affected America, as well as the whole of western civilization. And let me say: Postmodern philosophy is easier illustrated than it is explained.   (MORE)

Q&A: Why Pro-Lifer's Oppose the Health Care Law

Read our overview on the ruling here. Read comments on the ruling from around the nation here

WASHINGTON (BP) -- When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health care law, it left untouched sections of the law that have concerned members of the pro-life and religious liberty communities for months.


Although those sections often have been overshadowed by debates over the individual mandate, pro-life and religious liberty groups were raising their concerns even before the law passed Congress in 2010.

Following are questions, and answers, about their concerns:

-- Why do pro-life and religious liberty groups oppose the law?  MORE

Update on Petra: A Miracle Inside the Aurora Shooting

(Celtic Straits) At Columbine, I have seen this before. But not up close. As a church pastor in Denver, I have worked as a chaplain alongside several police and fire departments. I was privileged to counsel parents just hours after the Littleton Columbine shootings. However, in this new tragedy at the Aurora Theater Dark Night shooting, one of the victims was a 22-year-old woman from my church, Petra Anderson (pronounced Pay-tra). Petra went to the movies with two young friends who are biking across America. You and I have been inundated with news about what happened next. A joyful movie turned into bloody, unbelievable chaos. Petra was hit four times with a shot-gun blast, three shots into her arm and one bullet which entered her brain. This a bit of Petra’s miracle story.
With awesome people from our caring and pastoral team, I spent all day Friday in the ICU with Petra and her family. Her injuries were severe, and her condition was critical. A bullet had entered Petra’s face through her nose, and then traveled up through her brain until stopping at the back of her skull. The doctors prior to surgery were concerned, because so much of the brain had been traversed by the bullet. Many areas of brain function were involved. They were hoping to keep her alive long enough to get her into surgery.... (MORE)

Holiness in a Hook-up Culture

FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) -- A few months ago I heard an eye-opening presentation by Dr. Joe McIlhaney, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist, who came to speak to our college students at Southwestern about what he has observed over his lengthy career caring for girls and women. His conclusion?

Western culture has stopped protecting its girls.  MORE