Ray taps into the Fundamental Evangelistic Association.

This is the very first time that I have seen bloggernacle link into a Christian fundamentalist website beyond my stripe of Christian fundamentalism.

Tonight, we are studying Jeremiah 7.  I wish you all could join in on the discussion. (more…)

This is interesting.

I have never read anything by Hank Hanegraaff on Mormonism.

 Back to Marsh’s Christmas book of 2008, what should I make of these quotes on the Restoration, the Joseph Smith Translation, and Martin Luther. (more…)

Here.

Michael Heiser is among the ranks for LDS perusal.

HT: Nick Norelli

Ok, one more quote: Alan Jacobs in his book, Original Sin (HarperCollins, 2008) puts Charles Finney in the same context with Joseph Smith. (more…)

Jacobs shares the bad side of the Pelagian Gospel and the good side of the Augustinian Gospel:

The Pelagian good news is that at every moment you are free to obey; the (unstated, hidded) bad news is that at every moment you are equally free to sin, and at the instant of choice a lifetime of strict spiritual discipline will avail you nothing. . . . Pelagianism is a creed for heroes, but Augustine’s emphasis on original sin and the consequent absolute dependence of every one of us on the grace of God gives hope to the waverer, the backslider, the slacker, the putz, the schlemiel.  We’re all in the same boat as Mister Holier-than-Thou over there, saved only by the grace that comes to us in Holy Baptism (52-54).

. . . “when Augustine spoke to his people of the terrible wrath of God, they would actually cry out in terror.*”

*Sermon 131:  “What then does the Lord say?  ‘Serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling.’ So the Apostle too, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.  For it is God who works in you.’  Therefore rejoice with trembling: ‘Lest at any time the Lord be angry.’  I see that you anticipate me by your crying out.  For you know what I am about to say, you anticipate it by crying out.”

From the book, Original sin:  A Cultural History (HarperCollins, 2008 ) by Alan Jacobs:

We have never had more need to explain ourselves to ourselves, but we manifestly lack the resources to do so.  It may be (I think it is) a propitious moment for reconsiderating that curious concept called peccatum originalis, the belief that we arrive in this world predisposed to wrongdoing–that this world is a vale of tears because we made it that and,  somehow, couldn’t have made it anything else.