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News

Saturday Selections - October 13, 2018

Conservative group confronts students with a smile and a $100 bill

Campus Reform offered college students $100 to name just one time that conservatives shut down a liberal speaker on campus - no one could do it. Campus Reform is not a Christian group, but if you've ever wondered what Christ meant when he sent out the twelve with instructions to be "shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matt. 10:16) this may well be what that looks like. Campus Reform's quiet, confident, and humorous questioning approach allows the students to discover for themselves that what they believe about liberals being more tolerant simply isn't so.

The power of gentleness

Parents, are you gentle? Or to ask the same question another way, parents, do you want to be the one your children turn to when they have problems?

British bakers win case against at the UK Supreme Court level

In 2014 Gareth Lee requested that Ashers Baking Company make a cake with Ernie and Bert on it, and the message "Support Gay Marriage." The Christian couple who owns the bakery refused, and this past week the UK Supreme Court sided with them, though at a cost.

Some scientists fudge facts - the fall of Brian Wansink

Science is sometimes given God's place as the final arbiter of Truth. It's good, then, to be reminded that Science is the findings of fallible men. And sometimes those men are not only fallible, but dishonest.

The New Fall TV Season - should we tune in?

What would happen if we watched TV with our kids and hit the pause button now and again to discuss what we were seeing?

Sign up to watch "Tortured for Christ" online for free Oct. 22 and Oct 23

Voice of the Martyrs has made a movie about their founder, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who spent 14 years in a Communist camp for preaching the Gospel. From the trailer this looks like a well-done and important film to see, and for two days – Oct. 22 and 23 – you can do just that if you provide them with your email address at the link above (they will add you to their email list, but you can always unsubscribe later).

In the trailer below, Wurmbrand explains to his wife the cost of telling others about God: "You know if I speak now, you will have no husband." Her answer? "I don't need a coward for a husband."

Full Article
News

Ninja's take on the "Billy Graham rule"

Tyler Blevins is known around the globe as "Ninja," an online gamer making $500,000 a month by streaming his game play to his millions of fans – peo...
News

Saturday Selections - October 6, 2018

Alberta's NDP says Christian school cannot state that God's authority supersedes human authority If the idea that a Canadian provincial government wo...
News

Saturday Selections – September 29, 2018

My big flaw: I am an impatient parent Being on time is a virtue. Taking it out on your kids when you're not, isn't. Thank-you for your messy house! ...
News

Saturday Selections - September 22, 2018

The myth of the ongoing papacy "If we believe the popular myth, we might think that there has been an unbroken succession of popes in Rome since Pete...
News

Saturday Selections – September 15, 2018

Mark Schultz on standing with, and praising God for, those who are devastated by grief In the first of these two videos Mark Schultz shares a beautiful song he has written as a pledge of sort to those who are so emptied they can't manage to stand and sing. In the second video he shares the story behind the song. h/t David Murray Addictions: sickness or sin? The trend to view all addictions as merely physical problems rather than sin, as John points out, will never get to the root of the problem. How the United Nations gets poverty wrong Inequality isn’t poverty and poverty ain’t inequality. Hope for ex-readers "Are you an ‘ex-reader’? Did you read Christian books in the past but have long since given up? If this bothers you, it should. Reading quality Christian books is good for you and for the people who know you. But don’t despair; you can start reading again. Here’s how." 3 problems with libertarianism "libertarianism tends to be ideologically-driven, and not driven by love" "libertarianism is backing away from the 'social issues' at just the moment when corruption on those issues has reached our nation’s lymph nodes." "libertarianism sees the abstraction of 'free market forces' as a tree in the orchard, instead of fruit from the orchard." The impact of legalizing marijuana in Colorado Prov. 18:17 says it is good to hear both sides of a debate. This documentary presents one side that is being underreported (57 minutes). ...

News

Saturday Selections – Sept. 8, 2018

Porcupine quills and a half dozen other examples of "Nature's" foresight Porcupines are able to make it through the birth canal without harming their mother because they are born with soft quills that quickly harden. An atheist's perspective on Christians' engagement with the world Madalyn Murray O'Hair – once America's most famous atheist – thought Christianity was about faith apart from works. And that's one reason she rejected it. Christians should not make the same mistake. Putting off children robs them of our youth Parents who put off having children till they are in their 30s deprives those children of years’ worth of their parents' loving presence and their parental guidance later in life. Fewer and fewer people actually need to go to college College takes time and money, but it used to offer a real benefit: higher paying, better jobs. Now companies like Apple, Google IBM, no longer require a college degree – they want skills, not a piece of paper. More on the birth control pill's dark side There's a lot about the pill that the medical community isn't readily sharing with those who use it. The most notable is that the pill can have a third action that doesn't prevent pregnancy, but instead prevents implantation - if a child was conceived it would cause a miscarriage. The mainstream press still won't talk about that, but a recent BBC report shared some of the under-reported side-effects Why is "mutualism" an important argument for Creation? ...

News

Saturday Selections - September 1, 2018

Pet clones - on the edge of human cloning? and The IVF needle baby The folks at Breakpoint.org have consistently solid, thoroughly biblical, commentary on the news of the day, with these two stories serving as great examples: 1) Pet cloning is a reality so what might distraught parents be willing to do if they learned a clone would bear an 85% resemblance to their dead child? 2) IVF and how "the redefinition of sex gave us the redefinition of marriage which is now leading to the redefinition of children." Delayed gratification: 3 simple ways to teach your kids about it The big double standard on child sex abuse no one is talking about Recent news articles have revealed how child sex abuse was covered up by the the Roman Catholic church but there's an even bigger story we're not hearing about: the child sex abuse being committed by public school teachers. Politician to transgender activists: You want woke? Fine, I’ll give you woke A politician shows how sometimes the perfect response to an absurdity is to embrace it fully. Are Western wildfires due to global warming? E. Calvin Beisner of the biblical stewardship group, the Cornwall Alliance, weighs in with an alternate explanation, and Kenneth P. Green of the Fraser Institute notes that even with the smoke, air quality in Canada is much better than it was in the past. A different sort of pro-life apologetic Prov. 26:4 warns us of the danger in answering a fool (or foolish argument): it can legitimize his argument, making it look like his is a respectable, reasonable position, comparable to our own. That's why satire, in these situations, is the more appropriate response: satire treats ridiculous argument as ridiculous. Recently some pro-lifers at Choice42 have taken up the challenge of answering a fool in his folly the right way, leaving no room for him to see himself as wise (Prov. 26:5). In their latest below they take on the argument that, when it comes to abortion and the unborn, men should just shut up, since they can't get pregnant. ...

News

Saturday Selections – August 25, 2018

Colorado Civil Rights Commission is after Jack Phillips again! A baker, who had to take his case all the way to the Supreme Court to be allowed not to bake cakes for same-sex weddings, is now facing charges from the same human rights commission for declining to bake a cake for a transgender transitioning celebration. Today, more than ever, read beyond the headlines Tim Challies on how even conservative or Christian media and bloggers can use headlines that are not telling us the full truth. That's why we need to do more than skim article titles. Susan Pevensie lives! If you were disturbed by Susan's absence in The Last Battle, the concluding book of the Narnia series, you'll enjoy this explanation of where she's ended up (10 min. read). Two atheists walk into a bar... Atheists will get upset when it's claimed they can't account for morality: "We can be as moral, kind, and helpful as anyone else. Many an atheist is the model neighbor, friend, and citizen." This claim may be true enough, but it isn't relevant. The point isn't whether atheists act moral, but whether their worldview provides any reason for them to do so. A Christian may well kill and steal (think of King David), even as that atheist over there spends his life helping little old ladies across the street. But the point is that when a Christian steals and kills he is breaking God's Commandments – he is not living according to his worldview. But if an atheist were to do the same thing, what atheist creed or principle would they be violating? What morality does atheism teach? School is here again - parents, watch out for the performance trap "The gospel is about grace; School is about performance. The gospel is about receiving compassion; School is about earning grades....The gospel and school. There is a disconnect, but it doesn’t have to exist." Truth is compassion: a grown man cannot become a little girl Just five years ago, almost no one took transgender claims seriously. Now folks are getting fired for insisting that God created us male and female. Why are we are losing this debate? One reason is because too many are afraid to even offer up the truth. Compelling, thought-provoking presentations of the truth are available, like this one below. But they are only useful if Christians use them, sharing them on our social media feeds. If no one will speak the truth – if we won't speak the truth – it shouldn't be surprised when the lie gains ground (3 min). ...

News

Adam Ford wants you to bypass social media

Adam Ford was a wildly successful Christian cartoonist (Adam4d.com) before he mostly gave that up to start a wildly successful Christian satire site (...
News

Saturday Selections – August 11, 2018

5 simple things you can do to raise kind kids This psychologist may or not may be Christian, but the suggestions he offers for modeling kindness are ...
News

Alberta man says he is woman to save money on car insurance
News

Creationists: there's more of us than we knew!

Being a Christian, even in the “Christian” West, can sometimes feel a little lonely, and doubly so if you are a 6-day creationist-type Christian. ...
News

Venezuela’s inflation to hit 1 million percent?

An official with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting that by the end of the year Venezuelan inflation will his 1,000,000 percent. What does that even mean? It would be like that $1 dollar soda you bought with your burger increasing in cost to $10,000 by year’s end. As recently as 2012 Venezuela was being touted by some as an example of socialist success. So what, over the space of just the last six years, has caused the sudden collapse of the Venezuelan economy? Oil prices are certainly a factor. Venezuela’s main export is oil and world prices for a barrel of crude fell from $100 (US) in 2014 to roughly $30 in 2016 before slowly rising to around $70 today. But many other oil-producing countries have been able to ride out this oil price drop. Another significant factor is surely the precipitous loss of economic freedom in the country. Since 1995 the Heritage Foundation has been ranking countries on their Index of Economic Freedom. The higher the score, the more individuals “are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please.” In 1995 Venezuela scored a 59.8, which gave them a “mostly unfree” rating but that was, at least, a couple points better than the world average. However, since then the Venezuelan government has taken over large parts of the economy by nationalizing everything from oil projects to glass manufacturing. The Heritage Foundation ranks countries who score under 50 as being “repressed” and Venezuela now comes in at just 25.2. (By way of comparison, the United States, Canada, and Australia score 75.7, 77.7, and 80.9, respectively.) The Index of Economic Freedom highlights many practical reasons why a loss of economic freedom leads to a loss of economic prosperity. If a business owner has to bribe officials to get his permits, or can't hire new workers because high taxes don't leave him money to pay for them, or he isn't sure whether he'll even own his business next year for fear the government might nationalize it, we can understand that this type of business environment is going to stifle initiative and innovation. Why start or expand a business – investing your sweat and yours savings – when the government is going to take most of the earnings via high taxes, or might take it from you completely via nationalization? But the practical argument against socialism is only the outworking of the theological argument. As Nancy Pearcey has noted, "biblical principles are not only true, but also work better in the grit and grime of the real world" and reverse is true too: what conflicts with biblical principles isn't going to work for long in that grit and grime. While socialism might seem admirable at first blush, as John Piper explains, it isn't biblical: "Socialism borrows the compassionate aims of Christianity in meeting people’s needs while rejecting the Christian expectation that this compassion not be coerced or forced. ....ll of the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament, assumes both the legitimacy — and, I think, the necessity — of personal ownership. 'Thou shalt not steal' makes no sense where no one has a right to keep what is his." Venezuela is just the latest example of how socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Will the world ever learn?...

News

Saturday Selections - August 4, 2018

Parents: act, don't react! This is an incredibly helpful piece of parenting advice on the topic of disciplining and spanking. When we react, we are most often punishing, not disciplining. (6 minutes). Conversation-killing short answers Is your teen giving you one word answers to all your questions? Jay Younts points us to the Bible to figure out how to really reach our children. Reading and forgetting might be worse than never reading at all "James talks about the man who looks into a mirror, sees his face is dirty, but then goes away and forgets all about it—as a result, he still has a dirty face. What was he talking about? People who look into (study) the Bible, find out what is wrong with them, but go away and do nothing about it." Albert Mohler on a pope that likes to push Catholic's buttons Reformed baptist Albert Mohler has a 20+ minute daily podcast well worth a listen or a read. On April 5, he delved into how Pope Francis is subverting established Catholic doctrine by offering up a trail of vague hints as to what he believes. The controversies that follow the Pope could be ended in a moment if he would just make a straight-forward statement that affirms what the Catholic church has also always affirmed...but he doesn't do that. A war criminal converted An account from the aftermath of World War II about a Dutch collaborator who was sent a Bible by the mother of one of the men he helped kill. Big numbers! A short video exploring numbers on the grand scale – how many stars are there in the universe? – and the microscopic scale – how many atoms in a grain of sand? (6 minutes) ...

News

Why do more today feel like have-nots?

Back in 1988 a Pew Research poll of Americans found that a majority thought they were doing quite well, describing themselves as “haves.” Just 17% said they were “have-nots.” Twenty years later there was quite the change: a 2011 Pew poll found that self-identified have-nots had doubled to 34%. So, why this pessimistic turn in Americans’ self-assessment? Is it because things have gotten so much worse? Well, no. Things have improved in big ways and little since 1988! Consider, for example, how many Americans had cellphones in 1988. It was under 5% of the US populace. Today 95% of Americans have a cellphone, and more than 75% of them have a smartphone. In other words, three quarters of the population are walking around with a device in their back pocket that their 1988 forbearers couldn’t even have imagined, but if they did, they would have thought this music-playing, direction-giving, movie-showing, call-anywhere, super computer would have to be a tool reserved for only the super rich. And yet we all have one. And when it comes to the basics, in 1988 necessities used to eat up 39% of the average American worker’s income. In 2013 that had fallen to just 32%, meaning more disposable income for most everyone. So, again, why do more people feel like they are bad off when, in general, things are actually improving? Well, maybe it has something to do with the growing popularity of the term “income inequality.” By one measure, this term is used almost twice as often as it was in 1988. And focusing our attention on how much more our neighbor has than us can make it hard to appreciate our own blessings (Prov. 14:30)....

News

Saturday Selections - July 28, 2018

How to help your daughter deal with mean girls Three tips on how to help your girls deal with - and not become - mean girls. Some cultures are better than others Some post-modern folk are so consistent with the outworking of their worldview, they'll argue that a culture that conducted ritual sacrifice daily is just practicing what they believe, and we shouldn't judge them. Thankfully, most post-modern folk aren't this consistent, and showing them something like this can help them see through the problem with their worldview. Facebook shuts down Christian ideas while allowing others to post threats  When CBC posted a video pushing homosexuality on what looked like kindergarten kids, a Christian professor posted a protest to his Facebook page. And got suspended by Facebook. Moreover, when folks share that they have been muted by Facebook, on Facebook - or their friends do - that can lead to further suspensions. Anne with an E is a PC fail Anne of Green Gables, everyone's favorite Canadian heroine, has been turned into an advocate for homosexuality, and an opponent of "domesticity and traditional social roles." What the Roman Catholic Church is still wrong: a helpful book R. Scott Clark reviews D.G Hart's new book Still Protesting: Why the Reformation matters. If you have a Roman Catholic in your life, this may be a good read. Another is R.C. Sproul's Are We Together: A Protestant analyzes Roman Catholicism. Is the Earth's climate unstable? A young earth creationist's thoughts (3 minutes) ...

News

Saturday Selections - July 21, 2018

Differences between salvation in the Qur’an and the Bible Three key differences, including that the Qur'an teaches Jesus did not die on the cross. ...
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The PCUSA and the need for more praise from the “mouth of babes”
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Justin Trudeau, and what the need for two witnesses would have us do
News

Saturday Selections - June 30, 2018

A refresher on the Columbo Tactic This past Spring, RP brought Tim Barnett around Canada to teach a couple of very effective apologetic tactics. In t...
News

Saturday Selections - June 23, 2018

What submission means for singles Wives are called to submit to their husbands so does that mean submission is only for marriage? Supercomputers don't compare to single cells  Paul Nelson talks with Del Tackett about "how a single cell is more complex than any computer." "Happy wife, happy life" and other misleading advice to young husbands Martin Luther once noted there are two sides of a horse we can fall off of, and swing back from the one side can have us falling off the other. When it comes to headship, some Christian men understood their headship role as being a domineering, rather than sacrificial one. Perhaps in an overreaction, there are men who think their headship role is sacrificial in so far as it involves doing whatever their wife asks, but they've abdicated any sort of leadership role. Other gospels? A number of scholars address the claim that there are other gospels (4 minutes). Should Christians be conscientious consumers? In a world in which the corporate sphere increasingly endorses what God opposes, should Christians be boycotting this business and that? Douglas Wilson argues that while that can be a legitimate tactic, that's quite different from saying it is a moral obligation (7 minutes). Dogs can talk In this half hour film Ray Comfort introduces us to his incredibly cute dog, Sam, and highlights how man's best friend can break the ice for evangelism (28 minutes). ...

News

Saturday Selections - June 16

Free book on what it means to be a man What does it mean to be a godly man? Dr. Bredenhof reviews The Masculine Mandate, and a link at the end of his review shows where you can pick up the e-book version for free until June 18. Fantastic free film for the kids From now until June 20 you can get a FREE download of The Wild Brothers, Episode 1 – the coupon code at checkout is KIDS18. Young and old will really enjoy this series (this is the first of eight videos) about a missionary family in the jungles of the South Sea Islands. Exotic setting, exotic animals, and adventurous Christian boys - it's quite the combination! Defend your body with the Word "...part of the problem, I know, is myself: I haven’t learned contentment. I haven’t fought to infuse my thinking about body image with God’s word. I haven’t wrestled with this because, for most of my life, my body conformed to the pattern of the world—and as long as it conformed, I felt little pressure. But now that it doesn’t, I’ve been caught unprepared." The hardest job in school: The board member? There are a lot of hard jobs in our schools so this title might be a bit much. But these two articles offer a lot for board members to consider. 5 fears that keep us from talking to our kids about porn "Why do we put off what we know we need to do, even when we know it is something very important? In my experience most parents know that modern day pornography is more dangerous than ever and that they need to regularly talk with their kids about it. However, my experience also demonstrates that a lot of parents put off these conversations until they discover their child has started viewing pornography. We do this because we are afraid." Earth: the perfect place to watch eclipses The moon is roughly 400 times closer to us than the Sun, and amazingly also 400 times smaller than the Sun. That makes it possible for the moon to completely block out the Sun during an eclipse while still allowing us to observe and study the Sun's corona. "It is an amazing 'coincidence.' The one place that has observers is the one place that has the best eclipses" (5 minutes - read more here). ...

News

Entertainment industry stands strong for what's wrong

Veteran actor Robert De Niro made news on Sunday for a very short speech – just 17 words. His assignment, at the Tony Awards, was to introduce a performance by Bruce Springsteen. But before he did that, he decided to spend just a moment insulting Donald Trump. Standing in front of the Broadway theater community – many of whom are also stars in Hollywood – De Niro began: “I’m going to say one thing: ------ Trump!” This brought out the wild cheers, and got the crowd on its feet. After shaking his fists above his head De Niro continued: “"It's no longer down with Trump, it's ----- Trump!” Now there’s any number of reasons to disapprove of Trump: he owns casinos and has lobbied the government to use its eminent domain to drive people off their property so he could expand those casinos; he’s been featured on the cover of Playboy; he’s bragged about his many affairs including with married women; he’s run the Miss American pageant; he’s on his third marriage; his wife has posed nude; he often lies, even (maybe especially) about unimportant things; and he throws out his own petty insults. But is that why these entertainment elites were jeering him? How many of them are on their third wives, and have had multiple affairs? How many have appeared onscreen naked? How many gamble in those same casinos? So they aren’t protesting Trump’s moral failings. But then what are they protesting? We can guess but we don’t know because De Niro used expletives rather than explanations. Later, in his introduction to Bruce Springsteen, he did give reasons – he spoke of the need for “truth, transparency and integrity in government.” But that came afterwards. What Broadway was cheering here was not a position, but simply his use of the F-word – they were siding with boorish vulgarity, over against intelligent, civil, discussion. In related news, Major League Baseball, and the National Football League announced that they will join the National Hockey League, and the National Basketball Association at this year’s New York City Pride March. That means all four of North America’s most popular sports leagues will be using their influence and reach to promote a lifestyle that is in rebellion to God, and which is harmful to its participants. This leads to a question. As actors, and sports leagues too, seek to use their influence to oppose God and His standards, how much longer are we going to contribute to that influence by watching and discussing their movies, and following their sports franchises? If they want to thumb their nose at God, then they shouldn't hear our applause. Picture is a screenshot from CBS broadcast of the Tony Awards and used under fair use provisions....

News

Saturday Selections - June 9

I believe in "theistic evolutionist" Dr. Bredenhof on the disingenuous way some in the creation/evolution debate describe their positions. Airport security: where do we draw the line? When airport security selected his 13-year-old daughter for a pat down, John Stonestreet wasn't going to have it. Should churches incorporate? "Incorporating the church also undermines Reformed church governance because it puts power in the hands of the membership to overturn “board” (i.e. elders’) decisions. Incorporation puts final decision making power in the membership rather than consistory." The myth of deforestation: the difference between environmentalism and biblical stewardship On the surface biblical stewardship and secular environmentalism seem to have a lot in common - both are concerned with pollution and loss of animal species. But where they often differ is in the Christian belief that people are more important than plants and animals. Now, saying people are more important than the plants and animals isn't to say that plants and animals are unimportant – it is only about getting our priorities straight. And when it comes to deforestation, secular groups have gotten their priorities mixed up. While the planet is, overall, still experiencing a slightly decline in the extent of its forests, that is happening in the poorest countries. Meanwhile in the rich West, our forests are increasing - in the UK they are three times what they once were! Trees are a luxury – the person who doesn't know what they are going to eat today doesn't have the time or energy to care about trees...and we shouldn't expect them to. But the wealthier a country becomes, the more likely they will see an increase in the size of their forests, as trees become a luxury we can now afford. So when environmentalists complain about deforestation, what is it they are asking for? That the poorest countries start making trees a bigger priority, even as people are still starving? They aren't saying that out loud, but that is what they are asking. And those are mixed up priorities. Starlings are stupendous! Grab the spouse, grab the kiddies, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy the jaw dropping spectacle of starling "clouds." God is fun! (4 minutes). On reading and how to do it We all know how to read, sure. But we don't always know how to assess what we're reading. Bekah Merkle gives us some of the tools (40 minutes). ...

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