Christian Heritage News

By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog: American evangelical religion, whether one traces it to Edwards, Whitefield, and Wesley or to the nineteenth-century revivalists (e.g., Charles Finney), has always been oriented around personalities. Reasonably, American evangelical Christians nurtured in the personality-oriented tradition assume that pattern as the norm when they evaluate other traditions. This can be a challenge for evangelicals discovering Reformed theology, piety, and practice. Most evangelicals seem to encounter the Reformed doctrine of salvation before anything else. Particularly, evangelicals are fascinated by the Reformed doctrine of divine sovereignty and in popular presentations the impression frequently left is that once one has embraced the doctrine of divine sovereignty—an Augustinian doctrine long before it was “Calvinism” or Reformed—one is now Reformed. The newly “Reformed” evangelical proceeds to synthesize his Reformed doctrine of salvation with his ev

 By Rev. Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms: Thomas Boston On Ways to Prevent the Devil's Attacks As ARP’s one of our forefathers in the faith was a man by the name of Thomas Boston. I love to read his works and recently I read a sermon of his from 2 Kings 2:14 where he is making some complaints about the lack of piety and the growth of sinfulness in his day in Scotland (ca. 1713). Desiring to see his people not fall into the same trap Boston gives six helpful examples of ways the individual Christian can work to help in his own heart to prevent a slackness in his hope in the Lord. For our prayer and worship help today I will list them with some commentary. 1) Stir Yourselves Up to Repent and Reform. (Rev. 3:2) This is key. Much like in Daniel 9 where the prophet is moved to recognize Judah’s deserved punishment in Babylon the Christian must begin with his own sin and need for personal growth in holiness before he can call upon his brethren to likewise move forw

 By Talia Wise - Posted at CBN News: Zwieg shares that both the Trump and Biden administration pressured Twitter and other social platforms to moderate content according to "their wishes." The latest findings of Elon Musk's controversial "Twitter Files" confirms the U.S. government pressured former executives to censor information about COVID-19 that was "true but inconvenient." Journalist David Zweig released a 40-tweet thread Monday titled "How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate." Musk, Twitter's new owner and CEO, has released several internal documents for select reporters to analyze and release to the public. This latest installment, popularly named "The Twitter Files", was reviewed by Zweig for the Free Press. Continue here...

 By Thaddeus Williams - Posted at Reformed Perspective: The subterranean origins of certain Equality and Justice doctrines If I were the devil – which some of you may believe after reading on – if my sworn mission was to devour the Christian faith from the inside out, then here is what I would not do. I would not slither into a Sunday service, breathing blasphemy and dragon fire, bragging about my triumphs at Auschwitz, commanding the congregation, “Deny that God is God!” I would not be an idiot. If I was the devil… I would dress up to look like justice, compassion, or equity, or some other ideal Christians would be quick to “Amen!” I would sink my teeth and suck the true, biblical content from those words – not that many of the Enemy’s people know the true, biblical content of those words to begin with – and then inject it with the venom of new meaning, a meaning that is antithetical to the Enemy’s definition of such silly words. Then I could get nearly every faithful Tom, Dick, and S

  By Rev. Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Seventeen82: I’m known for being a little bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to the 2nd and 4th commandments, and I own that. Though to be honest there is a reason for it, that ain’t exactly all my fault. I didn’t choose this battle ground, it came to me. Here I am minding my historical self and a wave of 20th century Americanism washed over where I was sitting. Within our confessionally Reformed camps there are several related issues that seem to come up regularly in both exams for the ordaining of ministers, and in the general life of the Church. And at the end of the day, in my opinion, it has to do mostly with a lack of consideration of other person’s liberty. Individualism is our national god. Presbyterianism, if it should be known for anything, is a covenantal and corporate faith, born out of the spiritual union we share together. When it comes to the Christian Sabbath there are particular applications worth considering today, which we’ll

 By John Stonestreet and Timothy D. Pagett - Posted at Breakpoint: By linking opposition to the Respect for Marriage Act to (rightly) ostracized ideas like racism, advocates, like the president, are setting the stage for leveraging hate crime legislation and other cultural tools to criminalize dissent. This past Tuesday, at a ceremony hosted at the White House, President Biden signed into law the so-called Respect for Marriage Act. The president used a lengthy speech delivered beforehand to soundly denounce any challenge to any aspect of LGBTQ ideology and activism. Specifically, in a striking display of anti-reason, President Biden condemned opposition to sterilizing, castrating, or permanently wounding children with gender dysphoria, as akin to racism and antisemitism. Lest anyone should miss the aim of this new law, as more than a few voices from mainstream evangelicalism clearly did, the administration invited a “non-binary drag artist,” who often dances seductively in front of c

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits:   “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.” -Amos 4:12 I wonder what the folks in Johnstown, Pennsylvania were thinking about when they woke up on the morning of Memorial Day, May 30, 1889. Did any of them think, “This will be my last day on earth because I am going to die today.” We can be almost certain that no one was thinking that way. John Parke, the resident civil engineer at the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a summer resort destination for rich Pittsburgh industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, Philander Knox, and Robert Pitcairn, was deeply concerned on that day. Rain had been falling for several days and the lake on which the resort was situated was dangerously close to flowing over the top of the thirty foot earthen dam. The dam had been compromised for years. John Morrell, the owner of the Cambria Iron Works in Johnstown, PA, actually approached Carnegie, et al several years before about refurbishing the dam, even offeri

 By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog: In this space I have been very critical of American public education and rightly so. It was a flawed system from its beginnings in the nineteenth century (which probably did a better job of educating students than its intellectual foundations even intended) but which, in the post-World War II era, has utterly collapsed into subjectivism. The public school system was never really intended to educate students as education was classically understood. The true purpose of public education was to create conformity with the status quo. In the nineteenth century, the intent was to make cultural Protestants out of Roman Catholic immigrants. In the early twenty first century, however, its function is to create obedient, postmodern Marxists, and it is succeeding very well. The American public school system is also manifestly a hunting ground for sexual predators. This is beyond dispute. The evidence is in the news every day. For whatever reason

 By Tom Strode - Posted at Baptist Press: Published December 12, 2022 ST. LOUIS (BP) – A second federal appeals court has blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to require doctors and hospitals to perform gender-transition procedures, as well as abortions, over their objections. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Dec. 9 a permanent injunction that barred enforcement of a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule that has become known as the “transgender mandate.” A three-judge panel of the appeals court, which is based in St. Louis, unanimously affirmed a North Dakota federal judge’s decision that the Catholic entities that challenged the regulation were entitled to protection under a federal law that guarantees free exercise of religion. In August, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously endorsed a permanent injunction against the HHS rule issued by a federal judge in Texas. The Biden administration declined to appeal t

By Bob Smietana - Posted at Baptist Press: Published December 9, 2022 (RNS) – When David Holsten first heard that missionary pilot Ryan Koher had been arrested in the city of Inhambane in southern Mozambique in early November, he was concerned but not too worried. “We thought, oh, he’s going to have to spend the night in jail,” said Holsten, president of Missionary Aviation Fellowship, a Christian ministry that has operated in Mozambique since the late 1990s. “Let’s see what we can do to help him.” Six weeks later, Koher remains in jail, with no end to his imprisonment in sight. Government officials have yet to charge the 31-year-old Koher, a pilot for Ambassador Aviation Limited, which partners with MAF, and two South African nationals who were arrested with him. Those officials, say MAF leaders, suspect the three were supporting an Islamic insurgent group in the northern part of the country. Koher had flown to Inhambane in early November to pick up a load of over-the-counter medicat

 By Tom Strode - Posted at Baptist Press: WASHINGTON (BP) – Congress has given final approval to enshrining same-sex marriage in the law. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 258-169 for the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA) Thursday (Dec. 8), 10 days after the Senate approved the same legislation. With the votes, Congress has decided to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). While the measure does not require states to legalize same-sex marriage, it mandates federal and state recognition of any gay marriage considered legal in the jurisdiction where it took place. Passage of the proposal by both the Senate and House serves as a watershed, congressional redefinition of the institution of marriage. Congressional Democrats led the effort to enact such legislation while expressing concerns a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court might reverse its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized gay marriage. Congress’ approval occurred during a lame-duck session prior to the tran

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: “. . . be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” -Ephesians 4:23 Nelson Rockefeller, the grandson of John D. Rockefeller (America’s first billionaire who made his money through his company, Standard Oil), was the governor of New York for three terms (1959-1973), and ran three times as a Republican candidate for President of the United States. The Rockefellers were chaste, moral people who did not drink, smoke, or use profanity. John Sr. and his son John Jr. personally read the Bible daily and led their families in family worship. They were social gospel Baptists who had a deep compassion for the poor and gave huge sums of money to help them. John Jr. strongly supported the ministry of Harry Emerson Fosdick, the well known liberal Baptist preacher. When Fosdick preached his famous sermons “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”, Rockefeller Jr. printed 130,000 copies and sent one to every Protestant minister in the country. John Jr. also buil

 By Pastor Dewey Roberts - Posted at Vanguard Presbyterian Church: Ian Murray wrote a biography of J. C. Ryle which he titled, Prepared to Stand Alone. In the history of the Church, it has always been those men who were ‘prepared to stand alone’ that God used the most to effect reformation and revival. John Charles Ryle was certainly one of those men. He was the last evangelical bishop of the Church of England, having served as the Bishop of Liverpool for the last twenty years of his life. He is known to both ministers and laymen for his wonderful spiritual writings, such as Holiness,Old Paths, Practical Religion, Knots Untied, etc. His writings breathe a spirituality which is attractive to Christians of all levels of maturity. I have often thought that any person who does not like Ryle’s writings is someone who needs to be watched carefully. It saddened me one time when a former mentor of mine spoke condescendingly about Ryle’s writings and I have observed since that time that he h

 By Tom Strode - Posted at Baptist Press: WASHINGTON (BP) – The U.S. Supreme Court debated with lawyers at length Monday (Dec. 5) whether a state has the right to compel speech in the latest case involving the intersection of religious freedom and same-sex marriage. The justices heard oral arguments for more than two hours in a designer’s challenge of a Colorado policy that requires her to create custom websites for same-sex weddings in violation of her religious beliefs. After two lower courts ruled in favor of the state, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the government can use a public-accommodation law – in this case, the Colorado Anti-discrimination Act (CADA) – to compel an artist to speak or remain silent without violating the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. The high court is expected to issue an opinion before it adjourns next summer in what is so far the most significant case of its term involving the rights of religious adherents. Continue here...

 By Linda Harvey - Posted at Mission: America: Respectable pedophilia. Are you ready for this? I’m not and I will be screaming against it until the last breath. But it’s coming unless a massive parent brigade shows up in both schools and in another venue that must be deployed to overcome this depravity: churches. The truth of God, proclaimed by His saints and confirmed in the power, blood and resurrection of Jesus Christ, fueled by the conviction of the Holy Spirit can prevail over the tragedy of child corruption. We can do this. But first we must face how we are all being groomed, as child sexuality is being packaged and sold to America, even as the latest fashion trend (e.g., Balenciaga ). We must refuse to be enablers and then take steps to end this diabolical trend. Here are the top 10 ways that child sexualization is being normalized in America. Continue here...

 By Reformation Miami Ministries - Posted at YouTube : Description: Posted Dec 1, 2022 Pastor Aldo Leon discusses a reformed view of nations with Pastor Benjamin Glaser of Bethany Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Clover, South Carolina. ( https://bethanyarp.org/) . Our Podcast Archive is located at https://reformationmiami.org/got .

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” -Acts 1:8 For the first time in over a millennium, less than half of the population (46%) of England and Wales now consider themselves Christians, while 37% list “no religion” as their preference. Muslims have grown to 6.5% of the population, up from 4.9% only a few years ago. The Church of England closed 423 churches between 2010 and 2019.[1] It has not always been this way. England and Wales have a rich history of great preachers and powerful revivals. Our country is not far behind. The Pew Research Center reveals that the so called Christian majority in the U.S. will end within a few decades.[2] I might add that the numbers are actually far worse. Both of these surveys have a very broad category of “Christian”, even including Mormons as Christians. I have said for at least eight years that the true number of believers in the U.S. is probably around 8%. David Wells