Pastor's Blog

Relevant Magazine recently posted an article by Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta.   North Point is the second largest church in the country, averaging 38,000 people in attendance on six campuses.   The headline was: “Why Do Christians Want to Post the 10 Commandments and Not the Sermon on the Mount?” Stanley begins by referring to controversies in several jurisdictions in recent years concerning monuments of the Ten Commandments in public places.   His central claim is that the controversies are all for nothing because the Ten Commandments don’t apply to us.   “If we’re going to create a monument to stand as a testament to our faith,” he writes, “shouldn’t it at least be a monument of something that actually applies to us?”   As possible alternatives, he suggests the Sermon on the Mount or John 13:34, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another:   just as I have loved you, you also are to love one ...

You might have seen that Whoopi Goldberg, that eminent divine of daytime television, recently offered her insights into the Bible’s teaching on abortion. Apparently she felt it necessary to do this in light of the Pope’s visit to the U.S. this week and his anticipated comments about the sanctity of life. As it turns out, according to The View ’s resident theologian, Scripture is conveniently silent about the subject. “ Well, there’s nothing in the Book that says anything about abortion. Let’s make sure of that. The Ten Commandments are the Ten Commandments. There’s only ten.” She knows this, of course, because she once played a nun in a movie (or rather, played a lounge singer in a witness protection program pretending to be a nun. But why quibble?) Predictably, the host was cheered by her adoring fans as if she had said something meaningful. We might be tempted to simply shake our heads in disbelief at Whoopi’s whopper and pass it off as something to be expected in today’s c...