Al Mohler on the crudity and cruelty of Ann Coulter.

Here's a two-hour discussion between John Piper and Mark Dever on topics like limited atonement, N.T. Wright, which Edwards books to read, being "missional," megachurches, congregationalism, abortion, and more.

Bruce Ware, who doesn't quite see eye-to-eye with Piper on limited atonement, also joins the first part of the discussion.

David Wells lecturing at the Henry Forum (at Capitol Hill Baptist Church) on Above All Earthly Pow'rs.

You can also listen to Dr. Wells's sermon from the same weekend, entitled Tis Me, O Lord, Standing in the Need of Prayer on Romans 8:18-30.

Here's a booklet that baptistic pastors should consider picking up: Forbid Them Not: Rethinking the Baptism and Church Membership of Children and Young People, by Ted Christman, founding pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY.

We Reformed Baptists may have an Achilles' heel when it comes to our own practice of baptism. From sincere motives, some of us have practiced the custom of withholding the initiatory ordinance and church membership from childhood and youthful converts. As was acknowledged earlier, the practice is obviously rooted in noble motives and based upon a rational apologetic, but it calls for serious rethinking nonetheless.

In short, it regrettably "forbids the children" who are truly converted to obey the Great Commission. It forbids them membership in the church. It forbids them the Lord's Table. It forbids them the pastoral oversight that rightfully belongs to all members of the church. It forbids them the sense of belonging to the family of God, even though they do in fact belong to God.

Christman writes:

The purpose of this treatise is to assert and defend the view that Reformed Baptist churches ought to be baptizing and receiving into their membership children and young people who give credible evidence of being truly saved.

Christman addresses objections that (1) "it seems too difficult to determine the genuineness of childhood conversion" and (2) "children surely are not mature enough to meet all of the requirements of church membership." He includes specific instruction on questions to ask a young professing Christian, and the proper procedure for church discipline. And in the final section of the short booklet he compare "the intrinsic dangers of the proposed practice with those of its alternative."

The booklet is short, but I think the arguments are persuasive. If you're interested in purchasing the booklet ($4) you can send an email to jhobson@hbcowensboro.org, subject line: "forbid them not."

For another perspective on this, you can listen to Mark Dever's talk on Children and Baptism. Dever also discusses this in a lengthy footnote on pp. 348-349 of Believer's Baptism, ed. Schreiner and Wright.

"In the worst of times, there is still more cause to complain of an evil heart than of an evil world." Robert Fleming (1630-1694)

"The keeping and right managing of the heart in every condition, is one great business of a Christian's life. . . . [The care they have of their hearts] is the hardest work. Heart-work is hard work indeed to shuffle over religious duties with a loose and heedless spirit, will cost no great pains; but to set thyself before the Lord, and tie up thy loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon Him; this will cost thee something." (John Flavel, Keeping the Heart: A Puritan's View of How to Maintain Your Love for God pp. 11, 18)

(HT: Jeff Brewer)

From DG blog, for your prayers:

Pastor John is keeping vigil at his dad’s bedside as he prepares to meet Jesus. His death is imminent. Please pray that his communion with Jesus would be sweet and unbroken and that his body would be restful.

(Pastor John will not be traveling to California on Wednesday to speak at John MacArthur’s Shepherds Conference.)

Here is how Pastor John began his book, Don't Waste Your Life:

My father was an evangelist. In fact he still is, even though he doesn’t travel now. When I was a boy, there were rare occasions when my mother and sister and I traveled with him and heard him preach. I trembled to hear my father preach. In spite of the predictable opening humor, the whole thing struck me as absolutely blood-earnest. There was a certain squint to his eye and a tightening of his lips when the avalanche of biblical texts came to a climax in application.

“I’ve Wasted It, I’ve Wasted It”

Oh, how he would plead! Children, teenagers, young singles, young married people, the middle-aged, old people—he would press the warnings and the wooings of Christ into the heart of each person. He had stories, so many stories, for each age group—stories of glorious conversions, and stories of horrific refusals to believe followed by tragic deaths. Seldom could those stories come without tears.

For me as a boy, one of the most gripping illustrations my fiery father used was the story of a man converted in old age. The church had prayed for this man for decades. He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone’s amazement he came and took my father’s hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life. But that did not stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face—and what an impact it made on me to hear my father say this through his own tears—“I’ve wasted it!
I’ve wasted it!”

This was the story that gripped me more than all the stories of young people who died in car wrecks before they were converted—the story of an old man weeping that he had wasted his life. In those early years God awakened in me a fear and a passion not to waste my life. The thought of coming to my old age and saying through tears, “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” was a
fearful and horrible thought to me.

Praise God for William Piper, his tireless passion to spread the gospel, and a life not wasted.

Eric Simmons offers wise and grace-filled counsel in his blog posts on an "Idiot's Guide to Correction" (part 1 | part 2)

Posting Dr. Mohler's thoughts on homosexuality reminded me of an outstanding address that he delivered in 2004 to the young men of Boyce College, entitled "The Seduction of Pornography and the Integrity of Christian Marriage"--available in manuscript [pdf | doc] and audio [RealAudio | MP3] form. What follows is an excerpt. I think the entire thing should be read by every man.

Consider these two pictures. The first picture is of a man who has set himself toward a commitment to sexual purity, and is living in sexual integrity with his wife. In order to fulfill his wife’s rightful expectations and to maximize their mutual pleasure in the marriage bed, he is careful to live, to talk, to lead, and to love in such a way that his wife finds her fulfillment in giving herself to him in love. The sex act then becomes a fulfillment of their entire relationship, not an isolated physical act that is merely incidental to their love for each other. Neither uses sex as means of manipulation, neither is inordinately focused merely on self-centered personal pleasure, and both give themselves to each other in unapologetic and unhindered sexual passion. In this picture, there is no shame. Before God, this man can be confident that he is fulfilling his
responsibilities both as a male and as a man. He is directing his sexuality, his sex drive, and his physical embodiment toward the one-flesh relationship that is the perfect paradigm of God’s intention in creation.

By contrast, consider another man. This man lives alone, or at least in a context other than holy marriage. Directed inwardly rather than outwardly, his sex drive has become an engine for lust and self-gratification. Pornography is the essence of his sexual interest and arousal. Rather than taking satisfaction in his wife, he looks at dirty pictures in order to be rewarded with sexual arousal that comes without responsibility, expectation, or demand. Arrayed before him are a seemingly endless variety of naked women, sexual images of explicit carnality, and a cornucopia of perversions intended to seduce the imagination and corrupt the soul.

This man need not be concerned with his physical appearance, his personal hygiene, or his moral character in the eyes of a wife. Without this structure an accountability, he is free to take his sexual pleasure without regard for his unshaved face, his slothfulness, his halitosis, his body odor, and his physical appearance. He faces no requirement of personal respect, and no eyes gaze upon him in order to evaluate the seriousness and worthiness of his sexual desire. Instead, his eyes roam across the images of unblinking faces, leering at women who make no demands upon him, who never speak back, and who can never say no. There is no exchange of respect, no exchange of love, and nothing more than the using of women as sex objects for his individual and inverted sexual pleasure.

By logical consequence, he achieves sexual gratification at the expense of women who have been used and abused as commodified sex objects. He may imagine a sex act as he fulfills his physical pleasure, but he almost certainly does not imagine what it would mean to be responsible for this woman as husband and accountable to her as mate. He can sit in his soiled underwear, belching the remnants of last night’s pizza, and engage in a pattern of one-handed sexual satisfaction while he “surfs the net” and forfeits his soul.

These two pictures of male sexuality are deliberately intended to drive home the point that every man must decide who he will be, whom he will serve, and how he will love. In the end, a man’s decision about pornography is a decision about his soul, a decision about his marriage, a decision about his wife, and a decision about God.

Pornography is a slander against the goodness of God’s creation and a corruption of this good gift God has given his creatures out of his own self-giving love. To abuse this gift is to weaken, not only the institution of marriage, but the fabric of civilization itself. To choose lust over love is to debase humanity and to worship the false god Priapus in the most brazen form of modern idolatry.

Thanks for all of you who have weighed in--and are still commenting--on Dr. Mohler's post on the causes of homosexuality.

I'd like to commend his chapter in the book Sex and the Supremacy of Christ. His chapter is on homosexuality, but the focus is on the kind of people that we—the body of Christ—must be. (You can listen to the audio online for free.)

Dr. Mohler’s main points are as follows:

1. We must be the people—the body of Christ—who can’t start a conversation about homosexual marriage by talking about homosexual marriage.

2. We are people who can’t ever talk about sex without talking about marriage.

3. We must be the people who cannot talk about anything of significance without acknowledging our absolute dependence upon God’s revelation—the Bible.

4. We must be the people with a theology adequate to explain the deadly deception of sexual sin.

5. We must be the people with the theology adequate to explain Christ’s victory over sin.

6. We must be the people who love homosexuals more than homosexuals love homosexuality.

7. We must be the people who tell the truth about homosexual marriage, and thus refuse to accept even its possibility because we love and seek the glory of God for all.

Because point #5 overlaps with the previous post, I'll reprint it here in full:

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ, standing on the authority of Scripture, must have a theology adequate to explain how God’s glory can be so pervasively denied and how God’s design can be so utterly corrupted as it is in the advocacy of homosexual marriage. How is it that humans miss this point so entirely?

In reality, there is only one sufficient explanation for sexual brokenness, and this is the very essence of sin. In Genesis 3, the Bible presents the truth of the Fall and its consequences. Sin is the one category indispensable to our explanation of the human problem. We cannot possibly
reach a correct diagnosis of the human condition without getting to the very heart of what sin is and what sin means.

In Romans 1, Paul describes human sinfulness as an effort to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (v. 18). Thus, at the center of human sinfulness is an ambition to rob God of his glory and to hide the truth from ourselves, even as we give ourselves to lawlessness and moral
anarchy.

As Paul sees it, the human race is involved in a massive exercise of self-deception, suppressing the truth and hiding it even from ourselves. We are all without excuse in this, says Paul, because God has revealed his laws even in the very structure of the universe (vv. 19-21).
Nevertheless, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Rom. 1:22-23). Rather than accept the truth, we have exchanged the glory of God for various forms of
idolatry.

As Paul makes clear, God’s verdict is devastating:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing

shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Rom. 1:24-27)

Can there be any doubt that this text speaks precisely about homosexuality? As a matter of fact, this important text speaks not only about the sinfulness of homosexual acts, but about the corrupted nature of homosexual desire. The language about women who “exchanged natural
relations for those that are contrary to nature” and “men likewise,” who “gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another,” indicates that homosexual desire is itself a perversion of the divine intention.

The devastating nature of God’s righteous verdict on human sinfulness is made clear with specific reference to the sexual sins detailed in this text. The formula repeated three times in this text (plus v. 28), “God gave them up,” is one of the most chilling words of judgment anywhere in the Bible. The utter finality of this formula stands as an irrefutable verdict
on the nature of homosexuality.

This text should not function as an intellectual “trump card” for Christians to use in argument, but rather as a foundation for revealing the universal and pervasive sinfulness of humanity. Paul’s purpose is to show that our human rebellion against God is the very essence of sin,
and according to Romans 1, homosexuality is the chief illustration of that truth. Rebelling against God’s design for sexuality is the primary exhibit of human sinfulness in action.

Again, we must acknowledge that homosexuality is not the only sin listed by Paul in this important chapter. As a matter of fact, Paul follows with a catalog of human sinfulness that encompasses all of us. By the time he mentions gossips, slanderers, haters of God, the insolent, the haughty, and the boastful, much less those disobedient to parents (vv. 29-30), he has included every single human being who ever lived. When speaking to homosexuals about the truth of God revealed in this passage, we must make clear that it not only indicts homosexuals for the sin of homosexuality, but every other sinner for every sin ever committed. Nevertheless, the specific reference to homosexuality here helps us understand the depth of sexual brokenness and sexual sin. We dare not miss this point or ignore Paul’s message.

An important dimension of Paul’s argument deals with the issue of idolatry. It is worth noting that the specific forms of idolatry common to the Graeco-Roman world, and to other ancient cultures, centered in exaggerations of human sexuality and fertility. A quick look at most museums of antiquity will reveal cases filled with figurines characterized by exaggerated genitalia. Many are explicitly pornographic, as the power of sex has been transformed into an idol and object of worship. This is an insight of inestimable theological significance.

When Christians address homosexuals and homosexual advocates with the reality that the Bible clearly condemns homosexual behavior as sin, we must acknowledge that we are sexual sinners speaking to other sexual sinners. Armed with the Bible’s profound understanding of human sinfulness, we understand that sin corrupts every dimension of human existence. The doctrine of total depravity affirms that the entire human being—including sexual desire and the emotions—is utterly corrupted and disoriented by sin and its consequences.

Christians have often sinned against homosexuals by arguing that homosexuality is simply a “chosen” form of behavior and lifestyle. Clearly, participation in homosexual behavior is a matter of choice, but the underlying desire is often not experienced by homosexuals as a matter of choice at all.

The biblical understanding of sin helps us to understand that every human being is a sexual sinner and every profile of individual desire is corrupted by sin’s effects. Even as our bodies show the effects of sin as we age, decay, and die, our affections show the corruption of sin because we desire what should not be desired. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ must stand before the world and acknowledge that we often do not even understand our own desires and inclinations.

When speaking of homosexuality, we must acknowledge that the pattern of male and female homosexuality is often different. We must understand that female homosexuality is often directly traceable to the misbehavior of men. Males have often acted toward women with such
violence, anger, and rejection that they can no longer trust men to meet their needs for intimacy.

Is a woman who resorts to lesbianism for such reasons responsible for her sin? Of course she is, but we must understand that all of us are inclined to lie to ourselves as we rationalize our misbehavior. This is true not only for homosexuals but for all human beings. As a matter of fact,
sin is so deceptive that we no longer even understand why we desire what we desire. The Scripture clearly identifies lesbianism as sin, but we must understand that this pattern of sin often follows an experience of sin at the hands of others. This does not excuse the sinner, but it helps us to understand why this sin can become such a deeply rooted part of an individual’s self-understanding.

Male homosexuality is usually a very different reality. The male sex drive—more essentially physical and genital—can be corrupted in so many different ways. There is no man who will be able to stand before God on the Day of Judgment and say, “I was only interested and aroused
by righteous and holy desire.” Each of us is a sexual sinner, and the male pattern of sexual sin includes corrupted desire, confusing arousal, and perverse thoughts.

No man, not even the most committed heterosexual husband, will be able to say on the Day of Judgment, “My sexual affections, my sexual arousal, was always, from the very beginning, only directly toward that which was holy—the covenant of marriage and the wife that I was given.” Every man struggles with a corrupted affection, and that corrupted affection, given the reality of the male sex drive, is often directed toward a desire for fulfillment entirely at odds with the glory of God. Every man bears a different sexual struggle, but every man is engaged in a sexual struggle, and this should give us an attitude of sympathy as we address homosexuals with the truth.

When homosexuals say, “I did not choose this,” they are often speaking the only truth they know. The homosexual movement tells homosexuals that their arousal is their destiny. This is a slander against God. We must learn not to trust our sinful affections and erotic interests, but to submit all of this to the objective authority of God’s Word.

By God’s grace, we must all come before the throne of Christ and pray that God will order our affections, our passions, and our erotic interests to his glory. We must say that to ourselves, even as we say it to the homosexual.

All of us stand under the same need for forgiveness and with the same accountability before our Creator. We must not sin against our homosexual neighbors by describing their pattern of sin as something they have arbitrarily chosen in terms of desire. We must declare God’s verdict that every single homosexual act is sin and that homosexual desire is itself sinful, but we must speak with compassionate honesty even as we seek to understand this reality.

Al Mohler has a very important blog post here regarding new developments concerning a possible genetic cause to homosexuality and the future possibility that such an inclination could be identified and changed while babies are still in the womb. I encourage you to read the whole post. Mohler rightly notes: "This question involves both abortion and gay rights -- the perfect moral storm of our times."

He concludes with 10 principles for "Christians who are committed to think in genuinely Christian terms" (the bolding of the main points is mine):

1. There is, as of now, no incontrovertible or widely accepted proof that any biological basis for sexual orientation exists.

2. Nevertheless, the direction of the research points in this direction. Research into the sexual orientation of sheep and other animals, as well as human studies, points to some level of biological causation for sexual orientation in at least some individuals.

3. Given the consequences of the Fall and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found. After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God's judgment.

4. The biblical condemnation of all homosexual behaviors would not be compromised or mitigated in the least by such a discovery. The discovery of a biological factor would not change the Bible's moral verdict on homosexual behavior.

5. The discovery of a biological basis for homosexuality would be of great pastoral significance, allowing for a greater understanding of why certain persons struggle with these particular sexual temptations.

6. The biblical basis for establishing the dignity of all persons -- the fact that all humans are made in God's image -- reminds us that this means all persons, including those who may be marked by a predisposition toward homosexuality. For the sake of clarity, we must insist at all times that all persons -- whether identified as heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, transsexual, transgendered, bisexual, or whatever -- are equally made in the image of God.

7. Thus, we will gladly contend for the right to life of all persons, born and unborn, whatever their sexual orientation. We must fight against the idea of aborting fetuses or human embryos identified as homosexual in orientation.

8. If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

9. We must stop confusing the issues of moral responsibility and moral choice. We are all responsible for our sexual orientation, but that does not mean that we freely and consciously choose that orientation. We sin against homosexuals by insisting that sexual temptation and attraction are predominately chosen. We do not always (or even generally) choose our temptations. Nevertheless, we are absolutely responsible for what we do with sinful temptations, whatever our so-called sexual orientation.

10. Christians must be very careful not to claim that science can never prove a biological basis for sexual orientation. We can and must insist that no scientific finding can change the basic sinfulness of all homosexual behavior. The general trend of the research points to at least some biological factors behind sexual attraction, gender identity, and sexual orientation. This does not alter God's moral verdict on homosexual sin (or heterosexual sin, for that matter), but it does hold some promise that a deeper knowledge of homosexuality and its cause will allow for more effective ministries to those who struggle with this particular pattern of temptation. If such knowledge should ever be discovered, we should embrace it and use it for the greater good of humanity and for the greater glory of God.

Thabiti Anyabwile's book, The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Foreword by John Piper), is now available. You can read online the:

• Contents
• Foreword, Introduction, and Chapter 1

Description and endorsements:

The cliché is that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. But Thabiti Anyabwile contends that it is not the mistakes we must study; it is the people who have overcome them. So he presents three of the most influential African-American pastors in American history who can teach us what faithful ministry entails.

Lemuel Haynes (1753–1833) reminds pastors that eternity must shape our ministry. Daniel A. Payne (1811–1893) stresses the importance of character and preparation to faithful shepherding. And Francis J. Grimké (1850–1937) provides a vision for engaging the world with the gospel. While they are from the African-American tradition, they, like all true saints, belong to all Christians of every background and era. Distinctive for its use of rare and out-of-print messages, Anaybwile’s work is valuable as a reference as well as a devotional resource.

“Do yourself a favor; read this book, and share it with others.”
Mark Dever, Pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church

“Thabiti Anyabwile introduces us to past African-American voices calling pastors to faithfulness in life and doctrine. This is the kind of book we pastors need.”
C.J. Mahaney, Sovereign Grace Ministries

“Reading The Faithful Preacher is like being introduced to three long-lost spiritual grandfathers and their legacy of pastoral fidelity.”
Ligon Duncan, Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS; Adjunct Professor, Reformed Theological Seminary

“Stories of faithful men of God—puritans of the richest kind. This book is a splendid achievement.”
Derek W. H. Thomas, John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Practical Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary; Minister of Teaching, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS; Editorial Director, Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

“As an African-American I welcome this book with great enthusiasm. It reminds the broad evangelical world of the provocative, deeply theological, missional, and culturally engaging tradition of African-American gospel preaching. A must read for all church traditions.”
Anthony Bradley, Assistant Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology, Covenant Theological Seminary

“With biblical and historical insight, Thabiti would have us admire and thank God for the labors and lives of three men—clear demonstrations of what the pastoral ministry should be, regardless of race, color, or nationality.”
Anthony Carter, Assistant Pastor of Southwest Christian Fellowship; author of On Being Black and Reformed

“At last a great book that taps the fresh water that flows from the heart of three great African-American preachers of the past! We have much to learn from them.”
Joseph M. Stowell, Teaching Pastor, Harvest Bible Chapel; former President, Moody Bible Institute

Challies recently reviewed the book.

The Apostle Paul tells us to examine and test ourselves (2 Cor. 13:5; cf. 1 Cor. 11:28). The more you know rightly about God, the better you know yourself; and the better you know yourself, the more you'll understand about God (as Calvin observes in the opening pages of the Institutes.

Toward that end, David Powlison has developed a number of "X-Ray Questions" that can be used to examine your soul. They were recently reprinted in Paul Tripp and Tim Lane's book, How People Change. They write: "These questions can help you think more clearly and deeply about why you do the things you do. They can give you a better idea of which things typically morph from good to god in your life. These discoveries are a blessing because they help you to see how truly lavish the grace of God is."

Phil Auxier has posted them to his blog: see part 1, part 2, and part 3.

I know the spirit of the blogosphere lends itself to ripping through things quickly, but I'd encourage you to consider printing these out and working through the slowly, learning more about yourself, your gods, and your God.

Ed Stetzer recently conducted a half-hour phone interview with Mark Driscoll.

You can download it at the Exponential site or on iTunes.

(HT: Steve McCoy)

For those who can't attend the Shepherd's Conference next week--featuring John MacArthur, Al Mohler, Mark Dever, Steve Lawson, Ligon Duncan, and John Piper--Nathan Wilson poins out that there will be a live stream of the conference. They will also be adding the main sessions to their audio download section (which also includes an archive section). And of course, you can also follow everyone's favorite indefatigable dexterous liveblogger extraordinaire©, Tim Challies.

(HT: Irish Calvinist)

I know I said I thought I'd stop posting on the "Jesus bones" discovery. But one of the fruits of this controversy is that in the course of responding to this foolishness there is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about archeology and the reliability of the gospels. With that in mind, here is Craig Blomberg's response.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

I registered today for the New Attitude Conference. [The conference, I'm told, is designed for singles of all ages and for young married couples.]

May 26-29 (Memorial Day weekend) in Louisville. Speakers include Josh Harris, Eric Simmons, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, C. J. Mahaney, and John Piper.

Here's a promo video that will give you a flavor for the conference and their desire to cultivate humble orthodoxy and discernment:

Tim Challies responds to an email and explains the extraordinary value of women (part 1 and part 2).

From the DG blog:

"John Piper just left town on an unscheduled trip to see his father who will probably be with the Lord soon. Please pray for him and his sister as they consider difficult end-of-life issues. His dad has lived a long and fruitful life walking with and working for Jesus. This flavors these painful days and decisions with hope. "

This article is now about 6 years old. It's a very encouraging, humble, personal account by Wayne Grudem regarding his marriage, his understanding of headship, and his marriage.

How many Americans go to church regularly?

If you listen to the answers provided by major opinion research firms, the answer usually hovers around 40%. (National Opinion Research Center: 38%; Institute for Social Research’s World Values: 44%; Barna: 41%; National Election Studies: 40%; Gallup: 41%.)

But in recent years this consensus has been challenged. It seems that it’s more accurate to say that 40% of Americans claim to attend church regularly.

In 1998, sociologist Stanley Presser at the University of Michigan—whose “research focuses on questionnaire design and testing, the accuracy of survey responses, and ethical issues stemming from the use of human subjects”—co-authored a study entitled: Data Collection Mode and Social Desirability Bias in Self-Reported Religious Attendance, American Sociological Review, v. 63 (1998): 137-145 (with L. Stinson). Comparing diaries with actual attendance, they made the estimate that the actual percentage of Americans attending church from the mid-1960’s to the 90’s was about 26%.

One of the problem comes in how the question is asked in a poll. Different questions yield different results. For example, in a survey you might ask, “What did you do last weekend?” listing for the person a number of possible activities, including church-going. This will yield a very different response than if you asked, “Did you attend church last Sunday?”

One factor is that people often answer according to what they think someone like them wants or ought to do. So people tend to overreport on the number of sexual partners they’ve had and how much money they give to charity, and tend to underreport on illegal drug use and the like. Hence, church attendance is often inflated.

In 1998 C. Kirk Hadaway and P.L. Marler published an article in the Christian Century entitled, Did You Really Go To Church This Week? Behind the Poll Data where they examine many of these factors. The authors focused on individual counties in the US and Canada, surveying actual church/synagogue attendance and comparing it with random surveys they were conducting. They found that actual church attendance was about half the rate indicated by national public opinion polls. Their estimate for US actual church attendance is around 20%.

Dave Olson, director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, surveying only Christian churches (i.e., evangelical, mainline, and Catholic) has come up with a similar number. The percentage of Americans regularly attending church is 18.7%.

Olson has collected his findings in an eye-opening slide-show entitled Twelve Surprising Facts about the US Church. The 12 points cannot be copied and pasted, so I’ve reprinted them below, along with links to his charts and maps.

1. The percentage of people that attend a Christian church each weekend is far below what pollsters report. (US percentage of population in worship on any given weekend in 2000)
2. The percentage of people attending a Christian church each weekend decreased significantly from 1990-2000. (US worship attendance in 1990 and 2000 by percentage of population)
3. Christian church attendance is between 1 ½ and 2 times higher in the South and the Midwest than it is in the West and the Northeast. (Percentage of population attending a Christian church on any given weekend in 2000)
4. Only one state [Hawaii] saw an increase in the percentage attending church from 1990-2000. [California, Connecticut, Georgia, and Washington were close to keeping up with population growth.] (Increase or decline in percentage of population attending a Christian church on any given weekend 1990–2000)
5. The percentage that attends church on any given weekend is declining in over two thirds of the counties in the United States. [Among the states with the highest percentages of declining counties were Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Carolina.] (US counties: Increase or decline in percentage of population attending a Christian church on any given weekend 1990–2000)
6. Evangelicals, mainliners, and Catholics are strongest in very different regions of the country. (maps for Evangelicals, mainliners, and Catholics)
7. Churches with 50–299 people in attendance are shrinking, while the smallest churches and larger churches are growing. (Decadal growth rate of churches by size category)
8. Established churches, from 40–180 years old, on average decline in attendance. (Yearly attendance growth of existing churches by decade started)
9. The increase in the number of churches is about one eighth of what is needed to keep up with population growth. (Net increase in number of churches in the US between 1990 and 2000)
10. The church-planting rate has been declining throughout the history of our country. (Churches started per 1 million residents)
11. Existing churches are plateauing and new church growth provides less than half of the growth necessary to keep up with population growth. (Attendance growth percentage of Protestant churches 1990–2000)
12. If the present trends continue, the percentage of the population that attends church in 2050 will be almost half of what it is today. (Projected percentage of population attending church on any given weekend)

[I originally post this entry in October 2005. If readers know of updated studies along these lines, let me know.]

If you are looking for an entertaining, understandable, and well-informed introduction to the Reformation, I'd encourage you to pick up Steve Nichols's latest book, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World. Steve is a great historian and a great communicator.

The Contents and Introduction and Chapter 1 are both online. You can also check out the book's webpage that contains a number of helpful links, art, and other other supplemental material.

A new edition is now online.

I think this will be my last post on the tomb story: Denny Burk has a great roundup of the many responses. Dr. Burk seems correct in this judgment: " Except for the initially credulous coverage by the mainstream media, the rejection has been virtually unanimous."

I recently reread this sermon from John Piper on what biblical "submission" does and does not mean. The overarching context is that Piper is addressing women whose husbands are not following the Lord or practicing biblical leadership. His text was 1 Peter 3:1-7.

1. Submission does not mean agreeing with everything your husband says. You can see that in verse one: she is a Christian and he is not. He has one set of ideas about ultimate reality. She has another. Peter calls her to be submissive while assuming she will not submit to his view of the most important thing in the world—God. So submission can't mean submitting to agree with all her husband thinks.

2. Submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. It is not the inability or the unwillingness to think for yourself. Here is a woman who heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. She thought about it. She assessed the truth claims of Jesus. She apprehended in her heart the beauty and worth Christ and his work, and she chose him. Her husband heard it also. Other wise Peter probably wouldn't say he "disobeyed the word." He has heard the word and he has thought about it. And he has not chosen Christ. She thought for herself and she acted. And Peter does not tell her to retreat from that commitment.

3. Submission does not mean avoiding every effort to change a husband. The whole point of this text is to tell a wife how to "win" her husband. Verse one says, "Be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won." If you didn't care about the Biblical context you might say, "Submission has to mean, taking a husband the way he is and not trying to change him." But if you care about the context, you conclude that submission, paradoxically, is a strategy for changing him.

The goal of this text is to help wives bring about the most profound change in their husbands that can be imagined—the transformation from being a spiritually dead unbeliever to a spiritually alive believer. Submission does not say, "I renounce all efforts to change my husband." What it does say we'll see in a moment.

4. Submission does not mean putting the will of the husband before the will of Christ. The text clearly teaches that the wife is a follower of Jesus before and above being a follower of her husband. He is going on the path of unbelief. She does not follow him in that, because she has been called to be a disciple of Jesus. Submission to Jesus relativizes submission to husbands—and governments and employers and parents. When Sara calls Abraham "lord" in verse 6, it is lord with a little "l". It's like "sir." And the obedience she renders is secondary obedience, under, and because of, and filtered through obedience to the LORD with a capital "L".

5. Submission does not mean that a wife gets her personal, spiritual strength from her husband. A good husband should indeed strengthen and build up and sustain his wife. He should be a source of strength. There are ways in which a wife is the "weaker vessel" as verse 7 says. But what this text shows is that when a husbands spiritual nurturing and leadership is lacking, a Christian wife is not bereft of strength. Submission does not mean she is dependent on him to supply her strength of faith and virtue and character. The text assumes just the opposite. She is summoned to develop depth and strength and character not from her husband but for her husband. Verse five says that her hope is in God, not the husband.

6. Finally submission does not mean that a wife is to act out of fear. Verse 6b says, "You have become [Sarah's] children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear." In other words submission is free, not coerced by fear. The Christian woman is a free woman. When she submits to her husband—whether he is a believer or unbeliever—she does it in freedom, not out of fear.

Piper next asks: What then is submission? He answers:

It is the disposition to follow a husband's authority and an inclination to yield to his leadership. It is an attitude that says, "I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don't flourish when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works." But the attitude of Christian submission also says, "It grieves me when you venture into sinful acts and want to take me with you. You know I can't do that. I have no desire to resist you. On the contrary, I flourish most when I can respond creatively and joyfully to your lead; but I can't follow you into sin, as much as I love to honor your leadership in our marriage. Christ is my King."

Don Whitney writes:

I had never watched an entire episode of Oprah until her program on The Secret. In the promo for the show, Oprah announced that the program would present "the secret" to making more money, losing weight, finding the love of your life, and achieving job success. Who could resist hearing more about such a claim, especially when it is made by the most influential woman in America and touted as the key to all her success? Apparently I wasn't alone. After the show, Oprah's website was overwhelmed, emails poured in, and within hours The Secret had become the best-selling book in the nation.

A week later, while unpacking in a hotel room, I powered up the TV. Oprah and two guests from the week before appeared on the screen, effusive about the transforming power of The Secret. Her website called the episode, "A follow-up to the show everybody is talking about!" People are not only talking about The Secret, they are buying it. I am writing this review in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and this particular branch has completely sold out of the book—again. Only two days ago—so I am told—a storewide announcement assured a horde of anxious shoppers that another large shipment of the book had arrived and would be brought to the sales floor momentarily. Readers quickly grabbed every copy. Almost impossibly, The Secret is even outselling (at this writing) the final Harry Potter book. And if that weren't enough, the audio edition of the book follows these two as the nation's number-three seller.

Read the rest of Whitney's review here.

Update: Just received this via email from Publisher's Weekly:

Simon & Schuster has placed the biggest reorder in its history for Rhonda Byrne's runaway hit, The Secret, going back to press for two million more copies. The books will be delivered to accounts over the next two weeks. The title—which offers wisdom from "modern-day teachers," as dubbed by S&S, on how to do everything from lose weight to get rich—got its big boost after Oprah Winfrey dedicated two episodes of her talk show to it in February. The new printing will bring total copies in print to 3.75 million.