Around the Horn

At first, Matthew St. John talks about the Holocaust of abortion, a kindergarten class every week. Like Matthew, I have held my tongue on the Sandy Hook tragedy. But I confess that I marvel that two dozen unthinkably tragic deaths have somehow tipped the national conscience when thousands of lives a day haven’t been able to. And while I am on this topic, I know you can’t have two people on first base, but here’s an article entitled Nobody Said Choosing Life Was Easy. It is worth overcrowding to fit it in here.

At second, Scot McKnight addresses the recent dustup with Lou Giglio. Much has been said around the blogosphere about it, but I think Scot hits closest to the truth when he says, “He could have done the right-er thing by never accepting such an invitation.” The sometimes apparent evangelical fascination with popularity is disturbing (as is the sometimes apparent fundamentalist fascination with un-popularity). The sooner we, and by we I mean all of us who claim Christianity, become satisfied with being Christians, the better off we will all be. Lou Giglio gave his withdrawal announcement here. Interestingly, he says, “Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past fifteen years.” I suppose that is to be a comfort. Somehow it’s not.

At third is this article about the idea of a Christian Seder. I have never been a fan of doing it (and in fact have never done it). I think this article gives some good reasons why.

And last, here’s an article about Bill Bright’s fasting testimony. Bill says,

As I waited upon the Lord, the Holy Spirit gave me the assurance that America and much of the world will, before the end of the year 2000, experience a great spiritual awakening. This divine visit from heaven will kindle the greatest spiritual harvest in the history of the Church. But before God comes in revival power, the Holy Spirit will call millions of God's people to repent, fast, and pray in the spirit of 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

2000 came and went over a decade ago, and perhaps my memory fails, but I don’t recall any great spiritual awakening. So was the Holy Spirit wrong? Or does this yet again expose a major fallacy in the continuationism movement? Perhaps there is a third way, that Bill Bright doesn’t know how to discern the words of the Holy Spirit. If this third way is correct, then I have an answer: The Bible. We discern the words of the Spirit by the Bible. That keeps us from making these kinds of predictions.