Posts by David Shumate
An AI “Interview” with C. H. Spurgeon
Editor’s note: This “interview” is excerpted from a chat session with Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and some observations about the process follow the excerpts. The session was initiated by the following prompt and Claude’s response: Prompt: “Assume the role of the famous 19th-century English pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I would like to interview you. Are…
Read MoreAI: Developing a Christian Perspective
FRONTLINE Volume 35 • Number 1 Old-School, High-Tech In 1958 my dad bought a Volkswagen Beetle. If you looked up “basic transportation” in the dictionary, I am sure you would find its picture. That year’s model didn’t even have a gas gauge. When it started to sputter and cough you would flip a lever in…
Read More“The Tour”
Hello. How good of You to come and see my humble dwelling. (Yes, I think You’ll find unique’s the word.) It suits me to a T. And it’s a source of pride (the humble kind). And did I say it looks brand new despite its age? I’ve lived here all my life, but I’ve been…
Read MoreGambling What’s the Big Deal? [FrontLine preview]
FRONTLINE Volume 33 • Number 5 Five years ago the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not prevent states from legalizing sports betting. Now thirty-five states and the District of Columbia allow it. Advertisements for sports-betting sites feature some of the most famous athletes and sports celebrities in the country. It is almost impossible to…
Read MorePrayer: Putting It into Practice [FrontLine]
FrontLine Volume 32 • Number 6 Prayer: Putting It into Practice Few topics are more important to the Christian life than prayer. At the same time, there are few areas of the Christian life where we feel as much the gap between what we ought to be and what we are. Books on prayer abound,…
Read MoreRevive Us Again
September/October 2021 | VOLUME 31 | NUMBER 5 Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? (Ps. 85:6) Throughout the history of the Church, individuals and groups of believers have longed and prayed for the moving of God, and God in His grace and His timing has responded. Today we…
Read MoreA Pure Church: FrontLine Nov/Dec 2020
VOLUME 30 | NUMBER 6 Although biblical separation is not considered one of the foundational doctrines of Christianity even by most separatists, it is an essential topic as we consider the ongoing issues related to the publication of The Fundamentals and the rise of the biblical fundamentalists a century ago. There are theological, historical, and…
Read More“We Hold These Truths to Be Self Evident”
What Does Genesis 1– 3 Have to Do with Our System of Government? If you want to get into a heated argument, go to a political message board and assert that America is a “Christian nation.” That question is not only an emotional one, but it is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which…
Read MoreGod’s Image Bearers
Loving Our Neighbors in a Fallen World I recently ran across The Third Option (Simon and Schuster, 2018) by San Diego pastor Miles McPherson. The Third Option is an examination of race and racism informed by McPherson’s experiences as a self-described mixed-race individual who identifies as black, who has placed his faith in Jesus Christ,…
Read MoreProspects for Religious Liberty in the United States
Questions We Are (or Ought to Be) Asking [Ed. note: This article comes from FrontLine, September/October 2013. In light of the present turmoil, the article is of interest in several ways. First, many of the concerns Dr. Shumate anticipated in the article are only growing more intense in our current climate. Second, though current threats…
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