The restaurant was bustling with chattering and the clanking of cups and plates as diners enjoyed authentic Mandarin food. My family was seated by a smiling waitress as she placed a pot of hot jasmine tea in front of us along with the typical porcelain cups decorated with a floral pattern I see all too often at Asian restaurants. I was hungry and knew what I wanted to order. The waitress must have sensed my appetite as she looked at me and asked if we were ready to order. Someone at the table quickly spoke up, “Not yet!” I sighed   More…

Confessional Lutheranism during the middle to late 19th century, when the “New Measures” of Charles Finney were wreaking havoc within American Lutheranism, was threatened with extinction. At that time, American Lutheranism was undergoing an identity crisis and looked to Revivalism for the change believed necessary for their survival in the golden age of American expansion. One Lutheran not interested in following the pop-church fad of the day was Charles Porterfield Krauth, author of the incredibly brilliant tome, “The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology” (CPH, 2007). The American Lutherans of Krauth’s day wanted to look and sound like American Revivalistic Evangelicals   More…

Some proponents of contemporary worship suggest that how best to deal with issues over differences about worship, is to first understand that worship practices, such as those found in the liturgy, are products of contextualization. “Contextualization” is a word having a meaning that isn’t at once apparent.  We want to ask, “What does that mean?” In general, contextualization refers to what is sometimes called “cultural bias.” A cultural bias is the subjective dimension to human conduct found in a community.  For example, a sociologist will look for patterns, traits, and practices that express this subjective dimension in a given culture.   More…

Flip on the television set and change the channel to one of the “faith stations” and you will find a plethora of ministers engaged in growing their multimillion dollar churches at the expense of those willing to support them.  The superstars of church growth fill the airways as well as stadium sized buildings. At the top of their game, they are all too willing to sell their secrets to “success” through seminars, books, DVDs and private coaching. Make no mistake about it, church growth sells and these gurus of growth peddle everything from individual self-help to marketing techniques. This is   More…

A BJS reader asks, “Does the teaching of Objective Justification (at least as I have heard it explained on the BJS threads) – that the “world” [all mankind] are in reality justified and forgiven by Christ’s universal atonement – also mean then that the world [all mankind] are in reality also SAVED, and this, apart from faith? If so – that they are saved – then how can that be apart from faith? And if not, how can it be that all are not saved though they are in reality justified and forgiven by objective justification? I believe this gets   More…

It is easy to think we Confessional Lutherans live in a unique era in time where false teaching and lukewarmness towards error are tolerated unlike any time before our own. However, that is not the case, since even when Paul was writing his epistles he was forced to warn the Church against false doctrine and its teachers. Yes, we read of warnings from Paul that a little false teaching, a little leaven, eventually grows to spread through “the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9; 1 Corinthians 5:6). The Church has been fighting false doctrine from its very inception. The remedy to this   More…

A Facebook friend of mine linked up this interesting op-ed carried by the New York Times this past Sunday. The title of the article, “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” What I found particularly interesting from the article is the writer’s claim, “But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed.” “Liberal Christianity has simply collapsed”? The writer’s assessment very much mirror’s that of Dr. Rodney Stark, who is currently a Professor of Social Sciences at Baylor University. Dr. Stark had much to say about the decline of mainstream Christianity two years ago in this interview printed at Patheos   More…

Associated with the Lutheran Hour Ministries is a self-described “totally unique” youth community “…where teens (and recent survivors of teenhood) get together online and in person to make a life-changing impact on their generation with the love of Jesus Christ” (on-line source). This community is called Five14. Five14 was brought to my attention by a pastor who received the Lutheran Hour Ministries newspaper, “The Lutheran Layman.” What caught this pastor’s eye was Five14’s advertisement for an August 11th “Christian concert” to be held in Chesterfield, Missouri. This same event is also being advertised at the Five14 website found at http://www.lhm.org/   More…

In 1971 John Lennon issued his hit single titled Imagine which managed to take the #3 spot in Billboard’s “Hot 100.” Shortly after John Lennon’s death in December of 1980 the song was resurrected as an anthem supporting utopian ideas such as a world without any religion, no countries, no possessions, but simply a world comprised of a single brotherhood. These same sort of impracticable ideas are not new and will no doubt continue in the world until the final day when Jesus Christ returns. The law of God which is written on everyone’s heart bears witness of our fallen   More…

With this post we welcome Jim Pierce to the BJS stable of writers. I have known Jim for years adn have had the pleasure of worshipping with him and his pastor in Seattle while visiting my in-laws. Jim has been with BJS from its inception and is known to many as a sharp, confessional, and provacative commenter on the site. It is a good news/bad news welcome. Jim has decided to shut down his apologetics blogsite down due to an illness in his family that he must attend to. In the meantime, he will be writing for us here at   More…