Posts by Don Johnson
Thinking About a Pastor in a Canadian Jail
A story out of my old home town appeared on many media outlets reported last week, including this one: Canadian Pastor Jailed Over COVID-19 Violations | Christianity Today. Of course, such stories arrest the attention of most Christians and cause immediate concern. We are sensitive to stories of persecution. Persecution is a reality in recent…
Read MorePandemic division causing pastors to leave ministry, counselor says – Baptist Press
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) – Brian Croft jokes that masks are the new “color of the carpet argument” in churches, with similarly poor outcomes. Pastors are resigning from the stress “kind of in a way I’ve never really seen.” … “Once masks and no masks got politicized, and once masks and no masks became about what’s…
Read MoreCovid-19, Virtual Meetings, and Communion
In response to a question from one of the people in our church, I asked several friends in the ministry for their take. The question was along these lines, “I noticed that X Church across town holds a ‘virtual communion’ with their services. Should we do something like that?” My instinct throughout this crisis is…
Read MoreThese Textbooks In Thousands Of K-12 Schools Echo Trump’s Talking Points | HuffPost
Christian textbooks used in thousands of schools around the country teach that President Barack Obama helped spur destructive Black Lives Matter protests, that the Democrats’ choice of 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton reflected their focus on identity politics, and that President Donald Trump is the “fighter” Republicans want, a HuffPost analysis has found. The analysis, which focused on three…
Read MoreThe Paradoxes of Shutdown Ministries
Jeff Straub outlined the challenges posted by Covid church restrictions in Canada for us yesterday. I’d like to offer a testimonial “from the ground,” so to speak. I should preface by saying that I don’t look on the ministry in our church as representative of the whole. Each situation is different, some churches may well…
Read MoreDonald Trump & 2020 Election: Case for Supporting Reelection Bid Now Harder to Make | National Review
Trump being Trump, he could never grasp that with the presidency comes the responsibility to give the bad news to us straight, and credibly. In a real crisis, Americans don’t want a reality-TV presidency. They don’t want to hear the leader of the free world’s take on the ratings of cable news shows and the…
Read MoreO Little Town of Bethlehem
For Christmas day, we offer the texts that formed my Christmas series of sermons this year.1 Alas, we were reduced to “on-line only” as our government shutdown all church services through this season. The Word of God nevertheless speaks, pointing to our Redeemer who arrived as a babe in Bethlehem and will return as a…
Read MoreFixing Our Hope in Days of Hopelessness
The great Servant passages of Isaiah begin first with a message to the nation, but the second Servant passage addresses a person. Isa 42:1 ¶ Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. Matthew quotes…
Read MoreA Very Covid Christmas to You – Part Two
We hear from friends around the world about changes various governments impose in their attempt to mitigate the effect of the corona virus. The widely divergent policies seem to have very little effect on the spread of infection, as the virus ebbs and flows despite our best efforts. The last four weeks (and continuing until…
Read MoreCall for Discussion: the Arlington Statement on Bible Translation
With this article, we bring the Arlington Statement on Bible Translation to your attention. The statement is a new development, created in 2019 by a group of scholars including fundamentalists and evangelicals. The intention is to set a standard for Bible translation going forward that will avoid problems others fell into in recent years (perhaps,…
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