(HT: Justin Taylor)

Many of you will remember the tragic accident that took the life of Steven Curtis Chapman’s five year old little girl this past May (see here). Chapman and his wife are now talking publicly about their grief and will be doing two high-profile interviews this week. The first one will appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, August 6 at 7am. The second will be on CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Thursday, August 7 at 9pm Eastern Time.

ABC has already posted an excerpt of their interview which you can watch here. Having only seen the excerpt, I was struck how Chapman spoke of his grief in the very same terms that he used in his song “With Hope“—a song which is a meditation on the text of 1 Thessalonians 4:13. If you’ve never heard the song, you can download it here. The lyrics are below. (more…)

The proceedings of the 2008 Lambeth Conference were overshadowed by the growing schism in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality. The liberal wing of Anglican bishops (including the Episcopalians in America) overwhelmingly favors the ordination of gay bishops and the consecration of gay unions. The conservative minority does not. The basic issue is whether the Bible’s teaching on these matters is authoritative. Obviously, the conservatives think that it is, and the liberals think that it is not.

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Don’t miss John Piper’s tribute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Piper writes:

‘Yesterday Alexander Solzhenitsyn died at the age of 89. I pause here on my vacation in the woods of Wisconsin to say, Thank you, heavenly Father, for the inspiration of this man’s life.

‘No one did more than Solzhenitsyn to expose the horrors of the failed communist experiment in Russia. Hitler’s purge would pale, if such things could pale, when compared to ten times the carnage in Stalin’s gulags.

‘Solzhenitsyn inspired me because of the suffering he endured and the effect it had on him. Here is the quote that I have not forgotten. It moves me deeply to this day. After his imprisonment in the Russian gulag of Joseph Stalin’s “corrective labor camps” Solzhenitsyn wrote . . .’

Read the rest here.

Pastor Joe Blankenship had a formative gospel influence on me during my college and early seminary years, and I am privileged to let you know about a great work that he is leading in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The ministry is called One Hope, and it’s mission is simple: “The goal of One Hope is to use the hope-giving and life-changing message of Jesus Christ to combat the cycles of racism, prejudice, abuse, violence, and poverty that exist in the inner city of Tulsa, and to train college-aged men and women to replicate the One Hope model in other urban areas” (see press release).

One Hope engages inner-city and under-privileged kids through tutoring, sports camps, and other services in order to deliver the gospel to them and their families. You can read about One Hope’s sports camp ministry in a recent feature in Tulsa World, but the best place to learn about One Hope is from their website, www.onehopeministry.org.

This weekend, One Hope is putting on an internet fund-raiser in order to raise money to build a facility to house the ministry. All they’re asking for is one dollar. Not bad for changing the world, right?. So read the press release or visit the website for more details about how you can contribute.

Dr. Ben Witherington is unhappy about Christians who spread the rumor that Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim. Witherington writes:

“It is hard for me to say what bothers me most about these fear and smear tactics by some Christians– whether its simply the untruth of the claim, or the fact that some Christians are prepared to use all sorts of unChristian tactics to prevent Obama from becoming President of the United States.”

Well, he’s right. Senator Obama is not a Muslim. But that fact doesn’t mean that he’s fit to President. I myself am happy to be counted among those Christians who would like “to prevent Obama from becoming President of the United States,” as Witherington has it. But my opposition to his candidacy has nothing to do with the scurrilous rumor that he is a closet Muslim.

Obama thinks that it should be legal for a woman to kill her unborn baby anywhere from 0-9 months of pregnancy, and he supports state sanctioned same-sex unions. No, he’s not a Muslim. But conscientious Christians ought to oppose his candidacy anyway.

In the most recent issue of First Things, Richard John Neuhaus has sharp criticism for “That Evangelical Manifesto.” Actually, sharp isn’t a strong enough word. The sting of Neuhaus’ essay is not so much his critique of the Manifesto’s substantive proposals, but his analysis of the motivations underlying it. Neuhaus thinks the Manifesto is an attempt by some evangelicals to gain acceptance with the broader culture.

In one of the more scathing sections of the article, Neuhaus critiques Os Guinness’ Christianity Today essay “A Gentle Plea for Civility.” Guiness is largely responsible for the wording of the “Manifesto,” and “A Gentle Plea” was a part of the initial roll-out of the document. Neuhaus writes: (more…)

Rev. C. A. W. Clark, pastor of the Good Street Baptist Church here in Dallas, TX, passed away on Sunday. He was 94 years old.

He pastored Good Street for over 50 years and was widely regarded as the master of the “whooping” style of preaching. Whooping is a style of black preaching that begins slowly then builds to a crescendo with fervor and the musical repetition of key phrases and intonations. Rev. Cleophus LaRue, a professor of homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary says that “He did it better than anybody in the 20th century.”

If you’ve never seen whooping before, you really should take a moment and watch the following video. It’s an experience. (more…)

Should we be trying to reduce abortions or eliminate them? That was the question that was taken up in a recent edition of “The Albert Mohler Program.” On the show, Russell Moore moderates a discussion between Tony Campolo and Robert George.

On the one hand, George contends that every person’s life (including the unborn’s) should be protected in law (thus eliminating abortion as a legal option). On the other hand, Campolo argues in favor of public policies that might reduce the number of abortions in America. Campolo has recently been named to the Democratic Party’s platform committee where he hopes that an ‘abortion reduction’ plank might be introduced into the party’s platform, even if Roe v. Wade is never overturned. (more…)

Don’t miss Robert Costa’s piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Rebel With a Cause: Bobby Jindal’s Spiritual Journey.” Bobby Jindal is the governor of my home state of Louisiana. And though he was born into a Hindu family, he converted to Roman Catholicism when he was in high school.

Jindal describes his journey to Christian faith as a long process. But one passage from the Journal article describes a breaking point. (more…)