A Vast Gulf Fixed Between

Well-meaning evangelical friends often advise me to cool down my rhetoric or dial back the perceived intensity of my objections to certain aspects of Reformed Theology. “After all,” they remind me, “We are brothers in Christ.”

That is true, and I want to acknowledge it right out of the starting gate. The basis for Christian unity is common faith in the person and work of the resurrected Christ, not any particular theological position about divine sovereignty, the composition and future of the nation of Israel or the timing of our Lord’s return for his people, not to mention several dozen less serious matters.

At the same time, the differences in faith and practice between dispensational Christians and Reformed believers go well beyond the theoretical. They are hugely practical.

While (((They))) Were Yet Sinners

I was having coffee with an older friend, a well-known Bible teacher for many years, when he surprised me by disclosing that he does not invest a great deal of time in the study of prophecy. Like me, he’s disinclined to do a lot of speculating, and uses his opportunities for platform ministry to exposit areas of scripture about which he can be most confident before the Lord concerning the interpretations he is sharing.

That’s a prudent stewardship of his study time for which he is to be commended. There are times when taking the wrong eschatological position can put you in a very awkward place.

National Rancid

Apologies for my title. Regular readers won’t get it and shouldn’t be expected to.

However, here’s something you’re more likely to come across than a pun on an obscure, late-career Elvis Costello album title: the online debate over Christian Nationalism is getting hotter and more acrimonious by the week, and with good reason. Young men are drawn to CN like moths to a flame, starved for something useful to do, a cause to stand for, and any sense that clear lines about political realities are finally being drawn within evangelicalism.

Anonymous Asks (308)

“In a theocracy such as the Christian Nationalist movement would like to see established, what would be the most biblical way to treat people with non-Christian religious beliefs?”

I’m never a huge fan of hypotheticals, and this is a big one. Notwithstanding the efforts of our postmillennialist friends, I believe the next (pseudo-) theocracy we’re going to see on this planet will be global beast-worship, to be followed shortly by the glorious millennial kingdom of the Lord Jesus, who will not require my advice about how to administer justice.