Jerry Falwell called him “one of my heroes and a hero to many evangelicals, including Billy Graham.” I recall wandering through the Billy Graham Center some years ago, observing the place of honor given to Finney in the evangelical tradition, reinforced by the first class in theology I had at a Christian college, where Finney’s […]
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: […]
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 […]
C. S. Lewis, we all know, came "kicking and screaming" into the kingdom. My family has recently also come "kicking and screaming" into the Reformation. It has been a long and arduous journey which included an extended desert experience in evangelical pietism mixed with many years as missionaries with a high energy parachurch organization. These […]
It is sad to hear that today many evangelical theologians and Christians despise the notions of "God's sovereignty" and "the sovereign grace of God." Although the Holy Scripture proclaims clearly the lordship of God the Creator (Gn 1:1), it is almost impossible for a Christian to listen to a sermon emphasizing God's free and gracious […]
The rush is on. How contemporary can we really be? How in the world will we ever get the unchurched to come when virtually all they know comes through 30 second sound bytes? We all know they will not listen to sustained discourse for more than 15 minutes! The contemporary plan is plain for all […]
For too long we have blamed the rebellion of our young people on such things as our school system, broken homes and the influence of the media. As a pastor and youth worker I refuse to point the finger at society anymore. I am not saying the declining morality of our society and the break […]
In December [1994], Mr. Bill Bright, a former businessman who founded Campus Crusade for Christ International, held a "prayer summit" that included Christian broadcasters Paul Crouch (a "prosperity evangelist"), Robert Schuller, Jack Hayford, and a total of 75 evangelical leaders whose view of revival is, generally speaking, an inheritance from Finney rather than from Whitefield […]
