This past August, I spent fifteen consecutive hours collecting ballots at a polling station. Along with me, there was a co-worker who had recently retired from a long teaching career at one of the larger schools in the California State University system. He had taught cognitive psychology and personality theory. In the slow moments of […]
Friday, 17 August, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton
Prune City, California, is an unfortunate town devoid of character. It tripled in size between 1965 and 1985. At that time, a plague of building contractors descended upon Prune City and immediately there were five thousand identical houses, a K-Mart, three supermarkets, five strip shopping centers, countless metal and tilt-up buildings, nine gas stations, eleven […]
Wednesday, 15 August, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton
Should Amy Grant sing cross-over songs? (1) After all, the distinction between full-time Christian service and secular employment is arbitrary. One of the great Reformation truths is that all occupations done before the face of God, and in compliance with his revealed Word, are godly occupations. On the face of it, the conclusion seems self-evident: […]
Wednesday, 15 August, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton
Egalitarian movements almost always spawn new breeds of elitism. George Orwell showed this bitter irony in Animal Farm. And Christians should find nothing surprising in such an assertion since all rebellions against any alleged elitism are tantamount to saying, "If I were Adam, I wouldn't have sinned in the first place." The Church falls prey […]
Tuesday, 14 August, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton
"The Lord be with you." "And with thy spirit." There are Episcopalians and then there are Episcopalians. "The Lord is in his holy temple: Let all the earth keep silence before him." Some Episcopalians are recently converted Baptists. They are like famished people who have been adrift three months in a life raft. When they […]
Thursday, 09 August, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton
Can a man take fire to his bosom and not be burned? –Solomon This story is about Christians in a different place and time from ours. It is a period about which we Americans have formed some unfair opinions. Indeed, the opinions we have formed as a result of this time have allowed us to […]
Tuesday, 07 August, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton
Blessing and honor and glory and power,Wisdom and riches and strength evermoreGive ye to him who our battle hath won,Whose are the kingdom, the crown, and the throne. Give we the glory and praise to the Lamb;Take we the robe and the harp and the palm;Sing we the song of the Lamb that was slain,Dying […]
Monday, 16 July, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton
We cannot speak about the influence of the charismatic movement upon Evangelicalism without speaking about charismatic singing. For in this realm, the charismatic movement has had an impact upon the Church far beyond proportion. This has happened, I think, for two reasons: First, there is something especially harmonious between the charismatic movement and the spirit […]
Tuesday, 12 June, 2007 by Leonard R. Payton