You have most likely read about David van Biema’s story “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith,” which appeared on the cover of this week’s TIME Magazine. Biema’s article is based on the findings disclosed in Brian Kolodiejchuk’s new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, which publishes letters written my Mother Teresa (Wikipedia) never before made public.
Here is a statement that represents well the inner struggles and doubts that she experienced:
Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. —Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979
Dr. D. James Kennedy (Wikipedia) has officially retired from his position as senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, a PCA church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He started the church on June 21, 1959 and has been the senior pastor for 48 years.
Kennedy preached his last sermon on Christmas Eve of 2006, only days before his heart attack. He has not been back in the pulpit since.
His replacement has not yet been chosen, but the process is underway and “is expected to take between one and two years.”
According to the 2006 Compensation Handbook for Church Staff (Amazon), the average US pastor makes $77,096 per year. As you would expect, the single largest factor determining that amount is the number of regular attenders.
Excluding insurance and educational benefits, senior pastors with a worship attendance of more than 1,000 people made an average of $111,052. That’s 73 percent more than the $64,266 paid to pastors with a worship attendance of 300 people or fewer.
If you’ve had many conversations with Roman Catholics, you’re probably well aware that many like to compare the one, unified Roman Catholic Church with the divided and splintered Protestant church, which has spawned tens of thousands of denominations.
It’s hard not to miss it. There’s been a significant resurgence in Calvinism in both evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Blogs, websites, books, conferences—Calvinists are popping up everywhere.
At Bob Jones University where I received undergraduate and seminary degrees, dozens of men were going in with Arminian or middle-of-the-road leanings and coming out four- or five-point Calvinists. The trend was unmistakable, especially among the seminary guys and often after taking Systematic Theology. You might be suspecting that this was the result of the persuasive arguments of an unflinching five-point Calvinist faculty, but for most part the faculty members warned against the dangers of Calvinism—at least the five-point kind.
He has since changed his position and rewritten the section—seeing the position of compromise at inherently problematic based on the fact that two views on baptism as mutually exclusive.
The Taliban has killed one of the 23 Korean Christian hostages who were captured on Thursday of last week. The Taliban insists that its demands were not met, claims no responsibility for the death of the male hostage, and promises that more deaths will follow.
“Since Kabul’s administration did not listen to our demand and did not free our prisoners, the Taliban shot dead a male Korean hostage,” Qari Yousef Ahmadi, the alleged news representative for the Taliban, told Reuters by phone from an unknown location.
Last Thursday 231 evangelical Korean Christians traveling through Afghanistan for missionary work were captured “on the main Kabul to Kandahar highway . . . in the largest single abduction of foreigners since 2001.” Those who were captured are part of Korean Action, a South Korean Christian medical aid agency based in Kandahar.
The bus driver, who was released Thursday night, claims that their were 23 on board (18 women and 5 men). The Taliban claims to have captured 18 total. This discrepancy is still unresolved. [↩ back]
Well-known evangelical preacher and theologian John Stott (Wikipedia | Theopedia) has finished his public ministry at the age of 86 with his final sermon as this year’s Keswick Convention: “The Model—Becoming More Like Christ” (MP3). Stott answered the question, “What is God’s purpose for his people?” this way: “God wants His people to become like Christ. . . . Christ-likeness is the will of God for the people of God.”
Building his sermon on three texts—Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18 and 1 John 3:2—Stott affirmed Wednesday night that “if we claim to be a Christian, we must be Christ-like.”
You have most likely read about David van Biema’s story “Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith,” which appeared on the cover of this week’s TIME Magazine. Biema’s article is based on the findings disclosed in Brian Kolodiejchuk’s new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, which publishes letters written my Mother Teresa (Wikipedia) never before made public.
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According to the 2006 
If you’ve had many conversations with Roman Catholics, you’re probably well aware that many like to compare the one, unified Roman Catholic Church with the divided and splintered Protestant church, which has spawned tens of thousands of denominations.
It’s hard not to miss it. There’s been a significant resurgence in Calvinism in both evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Blogs, websites, books, conferences—Calvinists are popping up everywhere.
Last Thursday 23
Well-known evangelical preacher and theologian 
