America's Changing Religious Landscape - Al Mohler

A massive new study of the American religious landscape reveals big changes and powerful trends shaping the future. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life surveyed 35,000 Americans in one of the largest research projects yet undertaken.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey report is over 140 pages long, but the Pew Center for Research has provided a helpful summary. Among the major findings:

• Most Americans (78.4%) identify themselves as Christians of some sort. This Christian majority seems to be a settled fact for some time to come, with trends such as Hispanic immigration bolstering these numbers.
• America's Protestant majority -- a mainstay of American life from the colonial era to the present -- is in decline and Protestant Christians will soon become a minority. The survey revealed that only 51.3% of Americans now identify as Protestants.
• Evangelicals are now the largest single group of American Christians (26.3%).
• Roman Catholics (23.9%) are the second-largest Christian grouping, though almost a third of those born into Catholic homes no longer consider themselves as Catholic. In all, almost 10% of all Americans are "former Catholics."
• Mainline Protestant churches and denominations continue to lose membership and now represent only 18.1% of the population.
• Buddhists (0.7%) outnumber Muslims (0.6%).
• Mormons (1.7%) and Muslims report the largest families.
• Those identifying as "unaffiliated" represent a fast-growing segment of the population (16.1%), including atheists (1.6%), agnostics (2.4%) and "nothing in particular" (12.1%).
• At least 27% of families are interfaith to some extent. The percentage rises to 37% if spouses of different Protestant denominations are included.
• Among younger Americans (ages 18-29) almost a quarter claim no religious affiliation.
• The Midwest is the most representative region of the country, while Evangelicals are concentrated in the South.

Christianity and Culture - J. Gresham Machen

One of the greatest of the problems that have agitated the Church is the problem of the relation between knowledge and piety, between culture and Christianity. This problem has appeared, first of all, in the presence of two tendencies in the Church - the scientific or academic tendency, and what may be called the practical tendency.

Some men have devoted themselves chiefly to the task of forming right conceptions as to Christianity and its foundations. To them no fact, however trivial, has appeared worthy of neglect; by them truth has been cherished for its own sake, without immediate reference to practical consequences.

Some, on the other hand, have emphasized the essential simplicity of the gospel. The world is lying in misery, we ourselves are sinners, men are perishing in sin every day. The gospel is the sole means of escape; let us preach it to the world while yet we may. So desperate is the need that we have no time to engage in vain babblings or old wives' fables. While we are discussing the exact location of the churches of Galatia, men are perishing under the curse of the law; while we are settling the date of Jesus' birth, the world is doing without its Christmas message. More...

God's great mercy!

There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us - Richard Sibbs.

SEVEN BASIC QUESTIONS of Worldview

If a worldview can be expressed in propositions, what might they be? Essentially, they are our essential, rock-bottom answers to the following seven questions:

1. What is prime reality—the really real? To this we might answer God, or the gods, or the material cosmos. Our answer here is the most fundamental. It sets the boundaries for the answers that can consistently be given to the other six questions. This will become clear as we move from worldview to worldview in the chapters that follow.
2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us? Here our answers point to whether we see the world as created or autonomous, as chaotic or orderly, as matter or spirit; or whether we emphasize our subjective, personal relationship to the world or its objectivity apart from us.
3. What is a human being? To this we might answer: a highly complex machine, a sleeping god, a person made in the image of God, a naked ape.
4. What happens to a person at death? Here we might reply: personal extinction, or transformation to a higher state, or reincarnation, or departure to a shadowy existence on “the other side.”
5. Why is it possible to know anything at all? Sample answers include the idea that we are made in the image of an all-knowing God or that consciousness and rationality developed under the contingencies of survival in a long process of evolution.
6. How do we know what is right and wrong? Again, perhaps we are made in the image of a God whose character is good, or right and wrong are determined by human choice alone or what feels good, or the notions simply developed under an impetus toward cultural or physical survival.
7. What is the meaning of human history? To this we might answer: to realize the purposes of God or the gods, to make a paradise on earth, to prepare a people for a life in community with a loving and holy God, and so forth.

From 'The Universe Next Door - A Basic Worldview Catalog" - James S. Sire.

Ligonier Internet Specials

Ligonier Ministries has some great specials on their internet store. One in particular is Defending Your Faith : An Overview of Classical Apologetics with R.C. Sproul for only $76.80, which is half off the listed price. Check out the other specials!

Ended, but Ligonier has reduced prices on all DVD's featuring R.C. 3/11/08

Learning Greek - Online Greek Grammar

Great Learning Tools and Study Aids for those who would want to start learning the language of the New Testament.

There are many sites and pages currently published on the web that can help with grammar and vocabulary learning. The links below will take you to explanatory grammatical pages and grammatical charts within the web site as well as links to other resources that may help you learn or review Biblical Greek grammar.

1. The Greek Alphabet & Pronunciation

2. Accenting

3. Vocabulary

4. Nouns

5. Pronouns

6. Prepositions

7. Verbs

8. English Grammar

9. Greek Grammar Sites

10. Teaching and Learning Greek Methods

THE REASON FOR GOD website launched

Tim Keller has launched the 'The Reason for God' website concurrently with the release of his new book 'The Reason for God'.

The book answers the following questions:

• Why does God allow suffering in the world?
• How could a loving God send people to Hell?
• Why isn’t Christianity more inclusive?
• How can one religion be “right” and the others “wrong”?
• Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God?

These are just a few of the questions and doubts even ardent believers wrestle with today. As the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, Timothy Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced “doubts” skeptics bring to his church as well as the most important reasons for faith. And in The Reason for God, he addresses each doubt and explains each reason.

Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations, and reasoning to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth.

The Works of Cornelius Van Til on sale $47.99

Both layman and scholar will now be able to browse through or study any aspect of Van Til's thought. This CD-ROM is the definitive repository of primary source materials.

The Works of Cornelius Van Til is edited by Eric Sigward, B.A., Harvard; M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; M. Div. and Th. M., Westminster Theological Seminary. Published by Labels Army Co.

About Cornelius Van Til:

Reformed apologist. Born at Grootegast, Netherlands, Van Til immigrated with his family to America in 1905. As a member of the Christian Reformed Church, Van Til attended Calvin College and Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, followed by studies at Princeton Theological Seminary and Princeton University. Ordained in the Christian Reformed Church (1927), he ministered briefly in Michigan and then taught apologetics for one year at Princeton Seminary before moving to the newly founded Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1929. Van Til joined the Orthodox Presbyterian Church soon after its inception in 1936 and remained at Westminster until his retirement in 1975 at the age of eighty.

Contents Included:

Searchable A Guide to the Writings of Cornelius Van Til by Eric D. Bristley, Th. M.

41 Books and Pamphlets

22 Manuscripts

111 Articles in English

25 Articles in Dutch

75 Reviews

32 Sermons and Addresses

Jerusalem and Athens, festrschrift

Audio: Approximately 52 hours of audio recordings

$3 Worth of Gospel, Please

From D. A. Carson's Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians (pp. 12-13)

• I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please.
• Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted.
• I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust.
• I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture.
• I want ecstasy, not repentance.
• I want transcendence, not transformation.
• I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races – especially if they smell.
• I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged.
• I would like about three dollars worth of the gospel, please.

Prayer: Luther's Way of Praying

When Martin Luther’s barber (and friend) asked him how to pray, Martin Luther responded with a brief treatise published in the spring of 1535 under the title A Simple Way to Pray, for a Good Friend. Luther explained his own practices of prayer.

The following are some of the suggestions Luther gave to his barber:

1. There is need for concentration
   Let prayer be the first business of the morning and last in the evening. Do not be sidetracked. Luther writes, “So, a good and attentive barber keeps his thoughts, attention, and eyes on the razor and hair and does not forget how far he has gotten with his shaving or cutting. If he wants to engage into much conversation or let his mind wander or look somewhere else he is likely to cut his customer’s mouth, nose, or even his throat. Thus if anything is to be done well, it requires the full attention of all one's senses and members. . .” (p. 32-33).
   
2. There is a sequence of prayer
   Luther writes ". . .kneel or stand with your hands folded and your eyes toward heaven and speak or think as briefly as you can. . .” (p.20). Offer a brief prayer “O Heavenly Father, dear God, I am a poor unworthy sinner, I do not deserve to raise my eyes or hands toward thee or to pray. . .” (p. 21) Begin to pray one petition of the Lord’s Prayer or one of the Ten Commandments. Never doubt you are alone in your prayer. “Do not leave your prayer without having said or thought, ‘Very well, God has heard my prayer, this I know as a certainty and a truth.’ This is what Amen means” (p. 29).
   
3. The heart must be ready for prayer
   Keep prayers meaningful. Unclutter your mind by focusing on one thought, perhaps one petition of the Lord’s Prayer or one of the Ten Commandments.
   
4. Prayer is like a garland of four twisted strands
   This garland is especially true when using Holy Scripture, Lord’s Prayer, or Ten Commandments. Each strand can be posed as a question:
   What is the (petition, commandment, etc) teaching/meaning for me?
   What prayer of thanksgiving does this prompt?
   What confession or lament does it evoke?
   What is the prayer petition?

Luther said, “Nothing can be said here about the part of faith and Holy Scriptures [in prayer] because there would be no end to what could be said. With practice one can take the Ten Commandments on one day, a psalm or chapter of Holy Scripture the next day, and use them as flint and steel to kindle a flame in the heart” (p.56).

--Quotes are from Martin Luther, A Simple Way to Pray, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster Knox Press, 2000.

What Is Monergism? (Monergism)

Monergism: In regeneration, the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ independent of any cooperation from our unregenerated human nature. He quickens us through the outward call cast forth by the preaching of His Word, disarms our innate hostility, removes our blindness, illumines our mind, creates understanding, turns our heart of stone to a heart of flesh -- giving rise to a delight in His Word -- all that we might, with our renewed affections, willingly & gladly embrace Christ. The Prophet Ezekiel inspired by the Holy Spirit asserted "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God." (Eze 11:19, also 36:26) The Apostle Paul said, "For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction." (1 Thess 1, 4, 5). I.e. In regeneration the word does not work alone but must be accompanied by the "germination" of the Holy Spirit. And again "...you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God." (1 Pet 1:23). More...