Posts by Kevin Schaal
The Great Dechurching Will Hurt Poor People
Churchgoing is good for the poor and vulnerable in a variety of ways: it gives people moral guidance on how to live their lives. It gives them opportunities to directly serve others as a community. It results in tithes that are then spent on a wide variety of charitable works. These things are not salvation,…
Read MoreWhat Does “Train Up” Mean in Proverbs 22:6?
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Probably the most quoted verse in Proverbs is 22:6. Over the years, the verse has held as a precious promise to parents that if they do everything right, their kids will turn out right.…
Read MoreIs This the Start of an American Stasi?
Last year, a whistleblower exposed an FBI memorandum that proposed infiltrating churches to deal with “radical traditional Catholics,” who were characterized as a domestic terror threat. The bureau interviewed clergy as part of the effort, and at least one undercover agent was involved. When this was exposed, FBI director Christopher Wray initially claimed that the…
Read MoreChristianity and the School Choice Movement
By 2015 or so, it seemed like the Christian School movement in the US was close to death. For thirty years, many church-based schools strangled their mother institutions. Some church-based schools thrived but only with very careful control of enrollment. Homeschooling overtook Christian Schools as the Christian Education of choice, but that left many students…
Read MoreUnited Methodism: How Conservatives Won the Debate, but Lost the Denomination | Jack Jackson | First Things
Going forward a few things are noteworthy. First, the UMC is fast lurching to the left. Second, progressives didn’t take over the denomination by presenting a compelling vision so much as by simply ignoring the denomination’s democratic form of church law to such a degree that the denomination itself became ungovernable, leading to a mass…
Read MoreThe false promise of keeping a loved one ‘alive’ with A.I. grief bots | America Magazine
With the creation of A.I., anthropomorphized chatbots are one critical example of how the rapidly advancing technology is testing the limits of the human condition. Source: The false promise of keeping a loved one ‘alive’ with A.I. grief bots | America Magazine
Read MoreThe Glory of God, Alcohol, and My Brother in Christ
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31) I have been preaching a series through the Book of Proverbs recently, and I finally got to the subject of social drinking. Proverbs has a lot to say on the subject. The language is clear.…
Read MoreSocial Justice and the Word of God
He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD. (Proverbs 17:15) God is a just God and He demands that human beings treat one another justly. So why aren’t the Social Justice Warriors of our culture falling back on the Bible as they…
Read MorePastoral Ministry as a Second Career
Is it possible to enter ministry as a second career? Not exactly. My concern is more about the word “career” than it is about the possibility of a midlife change of direction. Ministry is a calling, not a career. It must be directed by God, but God can direct any time He chooses. We need…
Read MoreDo Not Forsake Your Father’s Friends
Proverbs 27:10, 17 says, Do not forsake your own friend or your father’s friend, nor go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity; better is a neighbor nearby than a brother far away. As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. I would like to spend a…
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