BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Roman Catholicism is a medieval heresy...

Under the post, Repenting of parachurch, Baptist childhoods..., one comment elicited this response from your scribe. I posted it as a comment, there, but also put it here for the benefit of those who don't keep track of comments. (TB)

Brothers, allow me a few responses, although they must be hopelessly brief considering the weight of these matters.

>>Be careful when you sling around words like apostasy, idolatry (Per Calvin we're all "fabricum idolarum") and heresy.

We are careful. That is, careful--very careful--to keep them alive. The proper word to use concerning Roman Catholicism is 'heresy'. Read Joe Brown's Heresies. Reformed pastors and elders use this word following our Reforming fathers's example because Roman Catholicism is a system of doctrine that leads souls to Hell. Systematically.

The center of Rome's system is the merchandising of salvation through...

Straining at gnats, swallowing camels...

(June 2--Please note that TypePad only displays the first hundred comments on a post by default. Comments past 100 can be displayed by clicking the "More Comments" link at the bottom of the 100th comment.)

Is Federal Vision theology (FV) worthy of the intense opposition Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) conservatives dignify it with? I suspect not. For a number of reasons, I suspect such opposition to FV theology in the PCA is a sign of conservative weakness rather than strength; opportunism rather than courage. But first a bit of history.

Four years ago when FV was first dealt with by the PCA at her 2007 General Assembly (GA), conservatives rallied in support of a report condemning aspects of FV theology. The report was adopted and trials of Federal Vision supporters followed, the latest of which is the upcoming trial of Peter Leithart in Pacific Northwest Presbytery. It would appear, then, that the PCA is dutifully reforming herself and the cleanup is mostly finished.

But perhaps as noteworthy as what happened within the PCA at the 2007 GA and following is what did not happen. To understand this, we must consider a pair of strange couplings that took place that year.

The 2007 General Assembly was notable, not only for its debate and subsequent vote on the FV report, but also for several mésalliances forged in the lead-up to that vote. On one side, the middle-aged lions of the Keller/Redeemer/hipster/missional party provided some support for the FV camp. On the other side, the old lions of the southern/tall-steeple/rich/broadly Reformed party provided some support for the Truly Reformed (TR) conservatives of the PCA.

When the heat of battle passed, though, both the hipster middle-aged lions and the rich old lions woke up to strange bedfellows. Neither alliance could last. Redeemer hipsters...

Wheaton's Rob Bell and Bilezikian's Bill Hybels; and a warning against idolatry...

(Tim: For days now, I've received more recommendations of this video clip than I can count. Thanks to all of you. In a little while I'll post more on it, but first this. NOTE: This post has been changed to correct my error in saying Pastor Bill Hybels went to Wheaton College. His mentor has been now-retired Wheaton Bible Prof. Gilbert Bilezikian, but that relationship began when Bilezikian was teaching at Trinity College--not Wheaton.)

On MSNBC, Martin Bashir does the nasty job the elders of Mars Hill Church apparently can't summon the courage or insight for. He takes Pastor Rob Bell by the scruff of the neck and peels his adverbs off his verbs and nouns long enough to expose the deceptions that make him so much money. Bell's nothing more than a peddler of emotive words and idolatrous images, but many are fooled. His toxins go down smoothly and Baylyblog's warned readers against this hireling time after time.

Pastor Bell's the product of Wheaton College. Take a look at the job Wheaton didn't. Or maybe did?

When I first entered the ministry, there was another gifted prophet prophesying against the parts of historic Christian faith he judged old and in the way. His name was Bill Hybels and he studied under Gilbert Bilezikian at Trinity College (now Trinity International University) just prior to Bilezikian moving to Wheaton's Bible Department. Christianity Today fawned over Pastor Hybels, too, and my church mailbox was filled with offers to "Rev. Timothy Bayly" promising if I sent my money to one of Pastor Hybels' corporate enterprises, some of his churchly success might rub off on my ministry. Then maybe I could afford a similar campus, staff, hairdo, glasses, and jet. Think of it--my own private jet! Then I could pick up and minister internationally. Maybe even galactically!

An excessive passion for running along forked roads...

To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence. -G. K. Chesterton

In this game he had acquired a great deal of muddled knowledge, more than one approximation and less than one certitude. An absence of energy, a curiosity that was too sharp to be crushed immediately, a lack of order in his ideas, a weakening of his spiritual boundaries, which were promptly twisted, an excessive passion for running along forked roads and wearying of the path as soon as he had started on it, mental indigestion demanding varied dishes, quickly tiring of the foods he desired, digesting almost all, but badly, was his state." -Joris-Karl Huysmans, Becalmed.

(Tim, w/thanks to Apprising Ministries, here's a transcript of Rob Bell's video, "Love Wins.")

Several years ago we had an art show at our church and people brought in all kinds of sculptures, and paintings, and we put them on display. And there was this one piece that had a quote from Gandhi in it; and lots of people found this piece compeling. They’d stop and sort of stare at it, and take it in, and reflect on it—but not everybody found it that compelling. Somewhere in the course of the art show somebody attached a hand-written note to the piece, and on the note they had written: “Reality Check—He’s In Hell.”

Gandhi’s in hell? He is? And someone knows this, for sure; and felt the need to let the rest of us know? Will only a few, select, people make it to heaven? And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And, if that’s the case, how do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe...

Ringing Rob's bell...

(Tim, w/thanks to Brandon) Yes, we're already sick of Rob Bell's perversions but here's a post that does the job well. In fact, it's what Justin Taylor should have written in the first place.

No mincing and prancing and "I wonder" and "don't you think?" and "Maybe it's just me, but..." here. Just straightforward exposure of Rob Bells' betrayal of the Gospel and it's been done surgically. Read it.

One of its merits is that the author, Pastor Kevin DeYoung, did us all the service of transcribing Bell's blather, and here's the centerpiece...

Rob Bell's heresies...

(Tim, w/thanks to Random Thoughts) You could spend all day posting proofs of Rob Bell's wickedness. Without swallowing my time or yours, here's Rob on the extent of the Atonement and the nature of Hell:

Heaven is full of forgiven people. Hell is full of forgiven people. Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for. The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, which version of reality we trust. Ours or God's. (Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, p.146)

Rob Bell's no servant of God; he's a peddler of postures hip and kool...

Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:43,44).

(Jesus said) "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:42-44).

(Jesus said) "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28).

(Tim) We've warned against Rob Bell before here and here. That second link is a post titled, "Just one more savage wolf..." alluding to this warning to the Ephesian elders by the Apostle Paul:

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. (Acts 20:28-31)

If possible, that savage wolf, Rob Bell, becomes bolder in his wickedness. Watch this video:

Letters to Paul, VI: It's God's glory to choose some, so why hide it?

“Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21)

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, five, and six--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. At the end of the post is a note from David on the purpose of this series addressed to "Paul," a Zambian Christian leader.)

Letters to Paul, VI: Let's Stop Limiting the Greatness of the Atonement

Dear Paul: You may think that American Christians talk a lot about the elect, but I have to tell you, they don’t. You could attend a Bible-believing church for a long, long time (years) and never hear the word, “elect.” You could attend a Reformed church for a long, long time before you ever heard a sermon on the doctrine of election. 

And if a pastor does preach on election, he has to qualify it so many times in order to reassure his church and any visitors who might be attending and his elders and his wife, that he does not, in fact, believe in election. Whew! That was a close one...

So deeply ingrained is the egalitarianism of American culture that we will not...

Letters to Paul, V: the heart of the Atonement...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.)

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul (V): The Heart of the Atonement

Dear Paul: When lecturers teach on the atonement, they often start by talking about various theories of the atonement that have come up in the history of the church. The Christus victor (Christ the Victor) theory talks of how our Lord defeated Satan by His work on the cross. The moral influence theory talks of how Christ was an example for us to follow. The penal substitutionary theory talks of how Christ took our penalty and bore it; He took our place and bore our punishment.

Today, the Christus victor view is “popular”. It lets us talk way over our head about the powers of darkness and corporate evil and the sins of warfare and elitism and consumerism and on and on, as if we even know what we’re talking about. The moral influence theory is also popular. When we see what Christ has done, doesn’t it kindle within you a flame to be like Him? Doesn’t it make you want to ask, “What would Jesus do”? Doesn’t it make you want to be a better person?

Letters to Paul, IV: the blood Atonement was necessary...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul (IV): The Blood Atonement was Necessary

Dear Paul: The world we live in is violent. You know that from your background as a soldier. The violence in our world is a result of sin. My sin. Your sin. The sin of Ian Smith, the sin of Kenneth Kaunda, the sin of Joshua Nkomo, the sin of Robert Mugabe, the sin of the OAU, the sin of the leaders of England, the sin of Jimmy Carter, etc.

Jonathan Edwards tells us it all goes back to God’s command (“you shall not eat” from that one tree in the garden), the penalty (if you do, “you shall surely die”) and man’s specific disobedience (they “ate”). He is surely correct...

Luther on the Gospel-grace of the Law...

(Tim) At times, it seems best to promote a discussion to the main page. Readers lose track of discussions in the comments under old posts. Here's one such discussion that I'm promoting for reasons I hope are obvious.

It's my conviction that the endless mantra of grace that permeates our Evangelical/Redeemer/Westminster/Campus Crusade/R2K/Covenant world leads to us knowing little of grace because we despise God's Law and repentance.

In the midst of a discussion bearing on this matter, the historian Darryl Hart asked me to clarify what I meant when I spoke of the grace of the Law--that to preach the Law is Gospel preaching and that the Law is our Gospel schoomaster or tutor? Here I respond:

Scripture says:

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24).

This is the great failure of Gospel preaching in our time, and the reason for the absence of fruit within our churches. We fail to preach the Law, instead trying to save unregenerate sinners from the indignities of repentance. We preach grace without leading souls there through the Law. We repudiate the Schoolmaster. It's the habit of pastors only to address the regenerate within the Covenant Community while outside that Community we gag preachers, leaving Gospel proclamation and conversion to Campus Crusade...

Letters to Paul, III: language in the Emergent Church...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.)

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul: The Atonement as Cosmic Child Abuse

Dear Paul: Leaders in the Emergent church like Brian McLaren and Steve Chalke have criticized the Bible’s teaching on the atonement. Of course, they don’t put it like that, but this is truly what they are doing. They say they’re criticizing one popular theory of the atonement and use that criticism to undercut the teaching of the Bible.

They say that the way the doctrine is traditionally formulated amounts to child abuse...

Letters to Paul, II: language in the Emergent Church...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.)

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul: Let’s Stop Trying to be More Holy than God

Dear Paul: Certain Christian leaders in America are spreading confusion on the doctrine of the atonement. They don’t like the way the Bible and the Christian tradition have put things about the death of Christ so they’re proposing “new models,” “a new way of thinking about the death of Christ,” “a new vision,” “an exciting proposal that retains the best of the old and recasts it with a fresh perspective.”

Notice the emotions that come from the way they express themselves. It all sounds so promising, so inviting, so reassuring. It makes you ready to reject the old and accept the new, not for any real reason, but just because of the words they use...

Letters to Paul (I): language in the Emergent Church...

(Tim: Building on his series on Jonathan Edwards and the Atonement, here's another series--numbers one, two, three, four, and five--by our American African correspondent, David Wegener. But first, a note from David on the purpose of this series.)

Paul is a Zambian Christian leader, a graduate of the school where I teach. I’ve taken him as representative of one of my students so I can have a face to look at in my mind as I write these letters.

Often my students puzzle over what they hear coming from the church in the west. Much of their background has led them to accept without question what comes from western Christians. "After all, they brought us the gospel and keep coming back and helping us." My exhortation to Paul is the one given by his namesake: “Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Letters to Paul: Language in the Emergent Church

Dear Paul: I want to write a few letters to you about the atonement of Christ, criticizing several teachings that are coming from the west. But first I need to write one about language and communication styles.

A number of American Christian writers today have adopted a style that feels very inviting. They ask a lot of questions. They word their statements in a way that seems humble. They admit that they don’t have all the answers. They show an admirable hesitancy in making truth statements. They don’t rebuke people but want to leave us all feeling affirmed, one of the group, encouraged, like a fellow pilgrim on a journey...

Lessons to Learn from Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement, IV...

(Lucas: This is the fourth in a series by David Wegener. Here are the first, second, and third.)

5. Possibility of the Atonement. God’s justice can be satisfied. If it is possible for God to be dishonored, for His majesty to be held in contempt, for His authority to be trampled upon, then it is possible for His justice to be satisfied, His majesty vindicated and His authority reverenced. “God is as capable of receiving satisfaction as injury” (577).

6. Desirability of the Atonement. God will incline to the satisfaction of His justice. He alone is infinitely worthy of His own love and esteem. If He loves Himself, then He must hate all opposition to His person. Therefore, He “will be disposed to repair the injury done to his honor” (577).

Lessons on the Atonement from Jonathan Edwards, III...

(Lucas: This is the third in a series by David Wegener. Here's the first and the second.)

3. Substitution is a Scriptural idea. Some examples:

• Paul, Moses and David each desired to suffer in the place of another or others (Rom 9:3, Ex 32:32, 2 Sam 18:33). They desired to serve as substitutes.
• When hands were laid on the head of the sacrifice, it signified the imputation of the guilt of sin to the sacrifice. The sacrifice was the substitute.
• When Nabal’s foolishness provoked David to wrath, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, took the place of a substitute/mediator between David and her husband. She pled with David that he consider the sin of Nabal to be her sin. “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt” (1 Sam 25:24). She refers to Nabal’s sin as her sin. She desired that David reckon Nabal’s sin to her account...

Lessons on the Atonement from Jonathan Edwards, II...

(Tim: second in a series by David Wegener) Building on his introduction in which he outlined the attack on the biblical doctrine of the Atonement common among Emergent and other heretics of our time, David Wegener here begins a series of posts summarizing Jonathan Edwards' writing on the Atonement. David teaches and is Academic Dean at the Theological College of Central Africa in Ndola, Zambia. Both Christ the Word in Toledo and Church of the Good Shepherd in Bloomington support David and his wife, Terri, in this work. If you're interested in corresponding with David, feel free to e-mail him. David and I commend his ministry highly and encourage our readers to add his work to your missions budget.

* * *

1. Satisfaction for sin is necessary and rational.

Satisfaction and God’s justice and proportionality. “Justice requires that sin be punished, because sin deserves punishment” (565). There must be a link between the heinousness of the crime and the degree of punishment. God is infinite. Sin against God is infinitely heinous. So God must punish sin with an infinite punishment. Sin is infinitely hateful to God and stirs up infinite abhorrence and indignation. Because of the infinite nature of the crime, repentance bears no proportion to it. “Therefore we are not forgiven on repentance” (566). God is the supreme ruler of all things. He must “maintain order and decorum in His kingdom, and to see to it that decency and righteousness take place in all cases” (566). Thus, that perfection of His nature called His justice disposes God to punish sin as it deserves...

Lessons on the Atonement from Jonathan Edwards, I...

(Tim: first in a series from David Wegener) Tucked away in my two-volume compilation of many of the works of Jonathan Edwards is a section titled, “Remarks on Important Theological Controversies.” I'll be summarizing one part of this section subtitlted “Of Satisfaction for Sin." But first, let me introduce exactly why Edward's essay is important.
 
In today’s theological climate, particularly through the influence of the Emergent church and the hipness of the Anabaptist movement, many are questioning the traditional Protestant doctrine of the Atonement; that is, the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement. On the Cross, did Christ really take our place? Was it really for our sins that He suffered and died? Did God really punish Christ in our stead?
 
Taking their cue from Feminist and Anabaptist theologians, Emergent church leaders consider the traditional Protestant doctrine of the Atonement to be cosmic child abuse. An angry Father has punished His Son for wrongs the Son did not commit. Isn’t that what we'd call child abuse? Isn’t our society trying to enact laws to prevent just this kind of thing? Is this the message we should preach from our pulpits? Does it really square with God's love or justice?
 

Too ashamed to admit that it even exists...

For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. (Galatians 6:13)

(Tim, w/thanks to David W.) Like Joseph Smithism, Mohammedanism is not all it's cracked up to be. The best way to understand it may be to think of an heretical polar opposite to dispensationalism. With Islam, it's not the Old, but the New Testament that's thrown out. And yet it's not the Old Testament left intact, but the Old Testament eviscerated of the Fatherhood of God, with only a terribly perverted law and justice remaining.

There's no mercy; there are no antitypes pointing to the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. There's no Suffering Servant, no promise of a Redeemer.

Islam is the Judaizers run amuck...

Our death, or His?

(Tim, w/thanks to Taylor) Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy is dead. It had come down to the final at the World Sauna Championships in Heinola, Finland, last Saturday, and he placed second. But they couldn't give him his prize.

Seconds before he died Ladyzhenskiy was still competing, giving a thumbs up to the medics watching through a window (along with a thousand spectators). The sauna was above boiling--230 degrees fahrenheit, to be exact--but neither Ladyzhenskiy nor five-time champion Timo Kaukonen were willing to lose. The other finalists exited around three minutes and Kaukonen had just three minutes more to wait until Ladyzhenskiy's death crowned him the six-time champion.

When medics entered the sauna...

What is Gospel-centered ministry, really...

(Tim) What does it mean for a church planter to tell us he's "Gospel-centered?" Well, it means he's reading all the Acts 29 and Redeemer stuff. You can't stand in succession without talking the talk. But assuming "Gospel-centered" is a good thing, what does it actually mean?

Let's have the Apostle Paul define it:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

If a church planter is Gospel-centered, he's determined to "know nothing among (his flock) except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." Now two things, here.

First, the Apostle Paul is specific about the "nothing" he's determined not to know. He doesn't know superiority of speech or wisdom; he doesn't know strength, but weakness; he doesn't know confidence, but fear; he doesn't know how to cop a suave posture, but he trembles...

Joe Sobran: preaching to the conscience and the Roman Catholic error of transubstantiation...

(Tim) Ten years ago, I read this column by Joe Sobran. Joe's declaration of faith gave me joy, but what struck me, particularly, was this statement:

Great as Shakespeare is, I never lose sleep over anything he said. He leaves my conscience alone.

Still today, I find myself wondering whether what's lacking in Shakespeare is not also lacking in my own preaching? Do God's sheep leave my proclamation of the Word of God each Lord's Day morning with easy consciences? Is their sleep always peaceful? If so, what an unfaithful minister of the Gospel I am.

Then we hit Sobran's promotion of the Roman Catholic error of transubstantiation. If you think it scandalous that I'd give any space to Sobran's defense of transubstantiation, never fear. Think about this.

Jesus didn't say, "this wine which is poured out for you," "this wine is the new covenant in my blood," or "for as often as you eat this bread and drink this wine...."

Rather, He said:

“This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20b). And the Apostle Paul said, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. (1 Corinthians 11:25-28).

Reformed Protestants have no need to fear the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation. If their claim to hold to the literal meaning of these texts were true, it wouldn't be the wine, but the cup that becomes our Lord's blood. Have you ever tried to drink a cup?

Woman theologian wants to replace the Cross with a...

(Woman) by nature (that is, by the ordinary law of God) is formed to obey; for the government of women has always been regarded by all wise persons as a monstrous thing..." (John Calvin)

(Tim, w/thanks to Jeff M.) It's worth noting how southern Presbyterianism's Union Theological Seminary has left the faith of her fathers for the heresies of her mothers.

Back when I was a minister in the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA), I noted how "out there" the woman pastors were compared to the men pastors. Whether the issue was political, ecclesiastical, or theological, they brought a whole new level of error into the church that even apostate men hadn't given themselves to.

Eve is vulnerable. Can I get an "Amen" from a man who loves his mother, sisters, daughters, and wife?

The centrality of the atoning blood of Christ...

(Tim: Here's the first in a series on the Atonement by David Wegener, Academic Dean and prof of Bible, history, and theology at the Theological College of Central Africa--seconded there by Mission to the World. If you're able, please add David to your church's missions budget. This piece is cross-posted at ClearNote Blog.)

In the late 1890s, a group emerged to coordinate the activities and witness of Christian groups in the British universities. In 1905 it took the name of the Student Christian Movement (SCM). Over time the SCM became broader theologically and focused on witnessing and bringing diverse groups together for evangelism. They embraced a critical approach to the study of the Bible, and even considered admitting those into their membership who denied the Trinity.

Students who opposed this broadening trend were labeled “bigoted…narrow-minded…and trouble-makers.” Fortunately, for the witness of the gospel, a few Christian groups didn’t worry about what they were called. One of these, the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU), began to write letters to SCMs leadership, expressing their dismay at the theological developments within the SCM...