Treaders

Baby Pew Sitters

It is the practice of many churches to remove the children for most or all of the Sunday worship service for a “children’s church.” Pastor Christopher D. Hall calls this a disservice.

I’ve seen only a few pre-kindergarteners singing the liturgy, at least   not without skipping, swaying, or twirling. I’ve only heard a few lower   elementary kids comment on a particular sermon. But they have ears. They have   received the Holy Spirit, for God is at work in them, even if they do not understand   intellectually. “Let the children come to me and do not hinder them,” Jesus   said. Jesus is there in those means of grace.

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Stuck on New

As the “worship wars” continue in many churches, Bobby Neal Winters reflects on worshiping after the first date.

Those who attend only praise services are like the girl in 50 First Dates. The church for them is continually “now.” While the church should certainly be in conversation with this age, the conversation must take place from the point of view of eternity. The history and the tradition of the church are essential. We are surrounded by a large cloud of witnesses, and we are fools if we don’t heed them.

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Evangelicalism Today

Touchstone has convened a symposium to look at the current state of the evangelical movement in the United States. Six Evangelicals from across the movement's spectrum (Russell D. Moore, Denny Burk, John R. Franke, Darryl Hart, Michael Horton, and David Lyle Jeffrey) assess where Evangelicalism is today.

Sociologist Christian Smith has recently described American spirituality as “moralistic, therapeutic deism,” and he says that this fits those raised in Evangelical churches as well as any others. If Fundamentalism reduced sin to sins (or at least things they considered vices), contemporary Evangelicals seem to have reduced sin to dysfunction. In this context, Jesus is not the savior from the curse of the law, but a life coach who leads us to a better self, better marriages, and happier kids.

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Helpers Meet?

Touchstone has convened a unique symposium to look at the topic of preparing for marriage in our contemporary society, covering aspects such as the role of the churches, courtship, and romance.

It starts with senior editor S. M. Hutchens's proposal that marriage should be arranged by the parents. Then, there are responses by the young-and-married Jocelyn Mathewes, long-time InterVarsity campus worker (and Touchstone contributing editor) Kevin Offner, and senior editor James Hitchcock.

It is becoming harder and harder today for Christian single adults to meet potential life partners. And this comes to them as a surprise. Fresh out of college, they land their first job in a big city that is teeming with other singles and has vibrant and large young adult groups in its churches. Surely, they think, after a year or two, they will meet someone special, begin dating, and get married. With so many marriageable single peers all around, marriage will, well, “just happen.”

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Elect from Every Nation

Racial reconciliation won’t happen if we don’t take Ephesians seriously, contends Northwestern College professor Paul Kjoss Helseth.

Principled opposition to the pursuit of “racial reconciliation” in the church is not in itself evidence of intercultural incompetence. It can be evidence of eagerness to safeguard the primacy and sufficiency of the gospel in the life of the church by insisting that believers have already been reconciled to God and to one another by the Cross of Christ.

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Retaking Mars Hill

A closer look reveals that Paul was not building bridges to the popular culture on Mars Hill. Touchstone senior editor Russell D. Moore uses what Paul really said there to suggest how Christians might engage American culture.

Paul did not start speaking in Athens with a “common ground” idea of a generic god, and then reason along to Jesus. He started with the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, proclaiming among the Gentile philosophers exactly what he had proclaimed among the Jewish rabbis: that God had raised him from the dead. Where Paul starts is also where he ends: with the guarantee that God will bring about judgment found in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (Acts 17:31).

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Recognizing the Church

We dip into the archives to discuss Thomas Howard's classic Touchstone contribution from 1993 on five key aspects of what makes church.

As an Anglican I became aware that I, as an individual believer, stood in a very long and august lineage of the faithful, stretching back to the apostles and fathers. The picture had changed for me: It was no longer primarily me, my Bible, and Jesus (although heaven knows that is not altogether a bad picture: the only question is, is it the whole picture?). Looming for me, as an Anglican, was “the faith,” ancient, serene, undimmed, true. And that faith somehow could not be split apart from “the Church.” But then, what was the Church?

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Alma’s Mater

The violent hypocrisy of some “peace & justice” Christians is exposed by Southern Baptist Seminary dean and Touchstone senior editor Russell Moore.

When Jim Wallis advises pro-abortion politicians how to “neutralize” the life issue among religious voters— “neutralize” it, that is, without actually protecting the life and liberty of unborn Americans—he is playing a very old role in American politics: the political chaplain who claims divine sanction for a party’s existing policies.

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All Things Dark & Terrible

Russell D. Moore reflects on our fearful fascination with killer creation, ferocious beasts, and the glory of God.

Perhaps we are fascinated with all kinds of dangerous creatures—as evidenced by everything from children’s fairy tales to high-budget Hollywood vampire epics—because intuitively all people know that this is not the way life is meant to be. Even when we cannot verbalize it, we understand that there is an unseen enemy, a cosmic war. In our music, our artwork, and our literature, we all seem to recognize that in some sense, as Lewis put it, this universe is “enemy-occupied territory.” And this is true even when we disagree about the identity of the enemy.

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Benediction Fiction

Orthodox priest John Parker reflects on what is really behind inclusive public prayers.

To require a Christian priest to say little more at a benediction than “the Sustainer bids you to peacefully love your neighbor” or “May the Holy One be with you always” is effectively the same as asking a surgeon to say to a man dying on the operating table, “Don’t worry, everything is all right.” It is not a truthful word, and the dying man (and we are all dying men) needs the truthful word.

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