Christian Heritage News

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at Abounding Grace Radio : October is Reformation month for confessional Protestants, i.e., those Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican Churches that trace their roots to the Protestant Reformation. One of the basic tenets of the Reformation was sola Scriptura , according to Scripture alone. By “Scripture alone” we do not confess what some have called “ Scriptura nuda ” (bare scripture) without any subsidiary or subordinate authorities. This is also sometimes known as biblicism , the attempt to read the Scriptures without the church. The Reformation Churches all published official confessions of faith, in which the churches officially declared their interpretation of key passages of Scripture and their conclusions drawn from their interpretation of Scripture. What Christian Liberty Is And Is Not One of the conclusions that the Reformation Churches drew from the Scriptures is that, in their daily lives, Christians have liberty of conscience in matter

Mugshot of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi taken by U.S. armed forces while he was detained at Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr, Iraq, in 2004. (U.S. Army) Posted at Morning Star News : JOS, Nigeria (Morning Star News) – The death Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State (IS), did not come as a surprise to many across the world – many terrorists brandishing a gun in one hand and the Koran in the other have gone the same way. Boko Haram, the terrorist group now allied with IS as the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), has launched an insurgency in Nigeria for 10 years that has spread to other countries like Cameroon, Niger and Chad, killing thousands of people and displacing millions. Christians in these areas have carried much of the brunt Boko Haram’s bombings, burnings and kidnappings. The emergence of ISWAP under the leadership of Abu Musab Al-Barnawi has aggravated the crisis as the terrorists carry out attacks in different parts of Nigeria and other countries. ISWAP is st

Source: Caffeinated Thoughts By Anne Taylor - Posted at Caffeinated Thoughts: “ Shake it Off ” and train your toddler to be a Drag Queen! Let’s just say Ridgedale Library in Minnetonka, Minnesota, was a real show stopper last week during Drag Queen storytime. We’ve heard of stories here and across the U.S. on Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) taking precedence in our local, tax-payer funded libraries. I initially thought this was a hoax and simply unfathomable until I experienced one myself. Here in Minnesota, this fall brought a total of seventeen DQSH scheduled events at our Hennepin County Libraries , and the local mainstream media has done nothing to expose these individuals or their conduct in their locally tax-payer funded libraries. Approximately fourteen moms showed up at the Ridgedale Library DQSH. Among them were several grandmas, two dads, and a grandpa. About twenty-two children were ranging in age from infant, toddler, and preschool into the elementary grades were the

Gou Zhongcan is free after seven months imprisonment in China because of his Christianity. China Aid photo By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press: CHINA (BP) -- China has freed an imprisoned Christian but continues a reign of persecution including church demolitions and restrictions barring foreign students from worship, religious liberty advocates reported. China released house church member Gou Zhongcan Oct. 22 after seven months in prison, International Christian Concern (ICC) reported Thursday (Oct. 24). Gou, a member of Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC) in Sichuan, had gone missing in March and was seen days later with several plainclothes police, witnesses told ICC. Police have taken into custody 150 members of the church since fall, 2018. In the latest reported church demolition, police demolished a government-sanctioned Three-Self Church in Anhui province Friday (Oct. 18), attacking the church without notice of demolition and disrupting worship for perhaps 3,000 wor

By Rev. David T. Myers - Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History: We are more apt to recognize the New Jersey delegates like the Rev. John Witherspoon, or maybe Richard Stockton, as signers of the Declaration of Independence. But joining them was one Abraham Clark. Born February 15, 1726 in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, his family was solid Presbyterians in their denominational affiliation. Baptized as an infant by the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, first professor of the College of New Jersey, he grew up in the thrilling but dangerous days of increasing agitation of separation from England. With his inclination to study civil law and mathematics, he became known to his neighbors. Popular as “the poor man’s counselor,” he refused to accept any pay for his helpfulness to his neighbors. He further served them as High Sheriff of Essex County. But it was as a member of the Continental Congress on June 21, 1776, that he became interested in the issues of liberty and justice. Pennin

By Carole Novielli - Posted at Saynsumthn's Blog: What happens when a state or a judge for that matter orders the bodies of young children to be forever altered under the guise of medicine? Well, I think we already know because history is a great teacher. After all, under eugenics programs targeted at poor whites and a majority of minorities we witnessed the abuse of state eugenics courts who ordered the surgical sterilization of men, women and children (too young to consent) in the name of public health. And, while some were complicit in this monstrous part of our history, many others said and did nothing to stop it. Today, the James Younger case out of Texas parallels this tragic time in history and reveals how the state can potentially yank children from a parent and pump them full of hormones to force them to become another gender. Jamers Younger (Image: SaveJames.com) Past is reflection of the Present: “Unnamed patient records from the 1920s document hundre

By Andrew McDonald - Posted at The Protestant Standard: When we consider these events it is important to realise that the problem in our land is a spiritual one rather than a political one... It is now apparent that same sex marriage and abortion will be undemocratically foisted upon Northern Ireland as a result of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019. This will be a matter of great sorrow to all true believers in our province; both that the God ordained institution of marriage will be marred by the oxymoron of gay marriage, and also that any protection for the life of the unborn child will be removed. Whilst it is easy to focus our attention on where the blame should lie in these matters, and there are those who will certainly answer to God for their actions, the real question for the church is what it should do now. For long we have sought to prevent these things taking place, so does their pending implementation now mean that the battle is lost and our figh

Posted at Voice for the Persecuted: DAMASCUS/ANKARA ( BosNewsLife )– Tens of thousands of panicked-stricken people, many of them Christians, are seen fleeing north-east Syria amid fears that a brief ceasefire will not end a deadly Turkish invasion. They escape a region where over 100 people, including some Christians, were reported killed in recent fighting between Turkish and Kurdish forces. Others were injured. “Already one Christian home in a Christian neighborhood in the city of Qamishli has been shelled, with family members injured,” confirmed Christian aid group, Barnabas Fund. “The mother is in a critical condition in hospital. Two other Christians in Qamishli have been killed and many wounded,” the group added. Barnabas Fund said, “Christians are alarmed to note that the attacking forces include not only the Turkish army but also Syrian Islamist rebel factions whose extremist ideology makes them strongly anti-Christian.” At least one Islamic rebel group, the Levan

Transgender Symbol - Wikipedia Posted at The Christian Institute: A woman who lived as a man for eleven years has spoken about how she came to accept her biological sex after first accepting Christ. KathyGrace Duncan professed faith in Christ in her twenties and eventually renounced her trans lifestyle. She says she now wants to help people in a similar situation understand “who God created them to be”. Continue reading...

P&R Publishing By Steven Wedgeworth - Posted at CBMW: Rachel Green Miller’s Beyond Authority and Submission: Women and Men in Marriage, Church, and Society (P&R Publishing, 2019) represents a growing new voice in what might be called post-complementarian literature. In it, Miller affirms the biblical teaching of male-only ordination in the church and the husband’s leadership in the family, but she seeks to correct what she considers an intrusion of unbiblical and even pagan assumptions into the traditional Reformed and Evangelical discourse. In this review, I will first summarize the major sections of Beyond Authority and Submission and highlight its key points of argument. I will commend the admirable intentions which lie at its heart and even join in on a few important criticisms of some complementarian writers. Regrettably, I must also make several points of substantial criticism of the book. Its full thesis is not presented directly at the beginning, and so read

Van Buren Middle School By Linda Harvey - Posted at Mission: America: Most parents don’t like to be the last to know what’s being presented to their children, and Dayton, Ohio-area families were appalled to learn about a school-wide assembly held at a middle school. No advance parental notice was given for this event held in conjunction with homosexual/transgender National Coming Out Day. As I have mentioned in previous articles , schools are regularly observing special days and weeks as part of a coordinated “LGBT” agenda directed to America’s children. It all happened at Van Buren Middle School in Kettering, a Dayton suburb. An 11-year-old boy reported to his mom that a special speaker addressed the students. Actor/author Maulik Pancholy related his experience believing he was “gay” back in 6th grade and now encourages students to embrace their own homosexual feelings. He’s written a book called The Best At It. Yes, that’s right. Sixth graders are now being encouraged to ann

Joshua 24: 15, And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. By Anna Grace Wood - Posted at Femina Sola Gratia: Titus 2: 3-5, Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Declaration of Feminism (1971):“The end of the institution of marriage is necessary for the liberation of women; therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not live individually with men. All of history must be rewritten in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female rel

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at Abounding Grace Radio: Search for the phrase “all of life is political” and one finds not a few results. We expect such a sentiment to be very popular among mon-Christians, whose hope is focused on this life and this world. Remarkably, however, Christians are among those who use it most frequently. This is remarkable because there is a prima facie (i.e., what seems to be the case initially and is reasonably accepted as true until proven otherwise) evidence in Scripture that primary focus of Christians is not to be this world. My Kingdom Is Not Of This World When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus if he was King of the Jews, our Lord replied, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36; ESV). When the Jewish authorities tried to trap him by questioning him publicly about his loyalties, our Lo

By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press : KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP) -- Two years in filthy Turkish prisons reaped for pastor Andrew Brunson a spiritual "hunger, desperation and running after God" that he hasn't felt since his release. "I find that I don't miss prison; I wouldn't want to go back," Brunson told Baptist Press Tuesday (Oct. 8), after nearly a year of freedom. "But the conditions there drove me to seek God with such desperation, and now that I'm out, and I don't have those things driving me, then there's a lessening, a slackening of that hunger and desperation and running after God, and I actually miss that from prison. "I prayed a lot more because of that desperation, and I ended up structuring my day around prayer." Brunson was arrested in October, 2016, solely because of his faith and American nationality, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded nearly two months after his Oct. 1

Source:  https://www.district65.net/ By Joy Pullmann - Posted at The Federalist: To get a sense of what all Illinois public schools must begin teaching children starting next year, one can look at LGBT curriculum developed this summer in a wealthy Chicago suburb. Starting July 1, 2020, all Illinois public schools are legally required to teach children LGBT history and only buy textbooks that include the topic. NPR affiliate Illinois Public Radio labeled Christian and conservative opposition to this law while it was being considered as stemming from “hate groups.” The explicit goal of such laws, which are also in place in California, Colorado, New Jersey, and Oregon, is to make children agree with the left’s views of sexuality, which contradict the historic views of all major world religions. This is not only the open, stated goal of those pushing such laws but also explicit in the curriculum. Continue reading...

By Jonathan Master - Posted at Reformation 21: Although I do not know Rachel Green Miller personally and I am not on social media, I have been able to follow some of the debate surrounding her writing for a number of years. In my work for ACE, I have published her articles in the past, and have defended her in various ways both publicly and privately, while also voicing what I hope were fair and constructive criticisms. Miller's recent book, Beyond Authority and Submission , published by our friends at P&R, was endorsed by some close personal friends of mine, people whose expertise and acumen I greatly admire. In addition, several positive endorsements of the book have appeared on ACE sites. All of these things contributed to my interest in reading and reviewing the book for myself, though, because of the constraints of time, this will be less than a full academic review. Miller's argument in the book involves three key parts. The first is essentially historical. Mi

DISRN By John Wesley Reed - Posted at DISRN : Published October 8, 2019 Today the Supreme Court heard three cases involving Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects employees from discrimination based on sex, race, color, national origin and religion. What is being challenged in these cases is whether the term “sex” in Title VII includes sexual orientation and gender identity. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC involves a male employee who was terminated for refusing to abide by his employer’s dress code policy after the employee said he identified as female and would begin wearing dresses to work. The company, R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Home, argues that the former employee, who now identifies as Aimee Stephens, agreed to the company’s terms upon employment six years prior and since Stephens is now wanting to break the policy, this is grounds for termination. Stephens is arguing that

Valarie Hobbs   Published January 15, 2018 By Shawn Mathis - Posted at Pastor Mathis: A Protestant in post-Christian America: Something was nagging at the back of my mind while researching the growing acceptance of gay Christians among conservative and Reformed communities. The stories, the books, the argumentation, but especially the sentimentality, was too, well, effeminate. Now we live in such an age that these opening words may likely turn off half my audience. If only I made the proper caveats such as “when I use effeminate , I do not mean to impugn wide-swaths of women.” Certainly, while I was growing up and expanding my vocabulary to include effeminate , that definition never came with a caveat. The caveat is demanded because more and more Christians seem uncomfortable with the sex that God made them. Now, that does not mean that Evangelical men will be buying skirts any time soon. Nor will Reformed women start wearing combat boots (well, not most ). Cross-dres

By Peter Heck - Posted at Disrn: Unless you’ve been utterly removed from civilization, by now you have witnessed the hug heard ‘round the world: For those who won’t watch the full statement and who skip ahead to the miraculous 2:29 mark on the video, you will likely be left with a sense of astonishment, awesome wonder, and even bewildered confusion. You’re left asking: How could he do that? How can someone embrace their brother’s murderer? How could he be the one to initiate it? That type of mercy and forgiveness is totally antithetical to human nature. So where did it come from, how does this 18-year-old possess it, and how could I ever experience that kind of spirit myself? Brandt Jean tells you the answer to all those questions in his statement preceding the embrace. Continue reading...

John Gridley’s Prayer Bill. “John gridley and his relations desires to Bless god for his goodness to him in returning from captivity to his friends again.” (Medfield Historical Society) By Roberto O. Flores de Apodaca - Posted at the  Journal of the American Revolution : Housed in the Medfield Historical Society is a rare collection of prayer bills containing the prayers of thanksgiving from Massachusetts soldiers and their families during the American Revolution. These commonplace slips of paper include fascinating stories and spiritual requests of ordinary Continental soldiers. One of these late-eighteenth-century prayer notes was written by a veteran named John Gridley. In his prayer bill, Gridley and “his relations” expressed their “desires to Bless God for his goodness to him in returning from captivity to his friends again.” This prayer of thanksgiving contained no particulars describing his “captivity” or how exactly the “goodness” of God was manifested toward him that e

Posted at Outward OPC : OPC Millennials Talk Reaching Millennials – Part 1 (Ben Ward) We start a new series where we asked several OPC Millennials to talk about reaching Millennials. We provided 4 broad categories of questions, which you will see summarized, to prompt our respondents. These were simply prompts, and we gave them broad leeway to talk about important matters related to the OPC reaching millennials. A millennial is most commonly defined as born between 1981-1996, or currently 22-37 years old. We basically used that definition with some looseness on the bookends of that range. Our first respondent is Ben Ward. Ben is 27, recently completed an OPC church planting internship under Eric Hausler in Naples, FL. He grew up in a liberal Presbyterian home but became an “evangelistic atheist.” After becoming a Christian, Ben was a member at Covenant OPC in St. Augustine. He is a graduate of Gordon Conwell Seminary and is in the process of accepting a call in the OPC. T

The Domain for Truth Posted at The Domain for Truth: I’m going to be honest: Ministering to Millennial lost boys have given me more gray hair than anything I’ve done (be it school, Iraq, cramming finished seminary with two masters in 3 years while working and doing ministry). I’m talking about momma’s boys that don’t want to grow up to live up to their responsibilities; yet they are so narcissistic they think everything is beneath them, be it jobs, having a boss or they look down on other people. It exhausts me more than preaching 70 times in two weeks or preparing a semester worth of teaching theology and the Bible in three weeks with several all-nighters. It fatigue me more than my first three weeks of Iraq as a Marine where I worked literally 24/7 and grabbed naps in between things. Lest people think I’m just looking down on Millennials I want to say I’m also a Millennial. I’m also writing this since our ministry is heading towards a better place and I’m looking back at