Pastor's Blog

When I first began to post on Paul Johnson’s excellent book on secular intellectuals, I thought I would post a little here and a little there on each of the figures he chronicles. But what I discovered was that to do so would be to sound like a broken record. The personal circumstances and the extent of the influence of each person he describes vary, but the ideals to which they were committed being the same, their character and behavior were for the most part identical. So rather than making as many posts as a full review would require, let me simply quote Johnson’s own summary. We are now at the end of our enquiry. It is just about two hundred years since the secular intellectuals began to replace the old clerisy as the guides and mentors of mankind. We have looked at a number of individual cases of those who sought to counsel humanity. We have examined their moral and judgmental qualifications for this task. In particular, we have examined their attitude to truth, the way in w...

A quick follow up to my last post. A small church in eastern Kentucky found itself at the center of controversy last week when it was reported that the church had voted to ban interracial couples from membership. Thankfully, they have since reversed course . When I saw the headline I was hopeful that the church had recognized its sinful error. I was dismayed, however, to read the real reason behind the reversal. Stacy Stepp, pastor of the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Pike County, told The Associated Press that the vote by nine people last week was declared null and void after it was determined that new bylaws can't run contrary to local, state or national laws. He said the proposal was discriminatory, therefore it couldn't be adopted. It was the right decision to reverse an unbiblica l standard for church membership. The problem is that the right decision was made for the wrong reason. The mere fact that the church's position was "contrary to local,...

I happened across this headline:  Kentucky Church Bans Interracial Couples From Joining Congregation , and decided to post a link to a previous Ask the Pastor question:  What About Interracial Marriage?