ReformationUnderway

It should come as no surprise that Google is able to attract many authors and public figures to speak to employees on their campus. The company is among in the US by market cap, and has a very significant cultural reach. (A search in YouTube would find video of many of the 2008 presidential candidates speaking at the Googleplex.)

Justin Buzzard has an account of Tim Keller’s Google appearance on his blog. Google has a huge number of employees with graduate degrees, and would certainly tend to provide a very secular, intellectual audience. If it’s true that the lecture and Q&A will be posted to YouTube, count me among the apologetically-challenged who will be wanting to watch the event.

NCCT’08 is in the can. This was the first time our congregation had hosted a conference on this scale, and the reviews from our guests have been overwhelmingly positive. As the director of the conference, this has been very gratifying.

A large number of people from our church family, and even a few who are part of other area churches, came together to serve those who attended the conference, and I could not have been more proud, in a good way, of all that was done to make our guests feel welcomed. The gifts, talents, and dedication of so many contributed to making the conference run smoothly.

The teaching was also excellent. I’ll have more to say on that in the next few days, but know that I’m back now, somewhat rested from the exhaustion that resulted from the four-day push through the conference, and excited to enjoy a bit of time soaking in this year’s conference before our team gets started with the detailed planning for NCCT’09.

Did I mention that we have commitments from both John MacArthur and Bruce Ware for NCCT’09?

I'm no different from you. (Unless you're Superman, or Jack Bauer, in which case we're very different.) I struggle sometimes with a prayer life that grows dry and lifeless. Pastor Joe Thorn shares some interesting insights on the relationship between systematic theology and our prayer lives. Far from impractical head knowledge, as some would assert, sound theology truly does bring our thoughts into conformance with the Truth of God's Word.

(H/T: Justin Taylor)

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Prayer, Theology

This blog is not intended to be a political forum. The context for this post is a political campaign, but I'm posting it for other reasons. Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Baptist pastor before he was elected, was questioned about Romney's faith during an interview, and asked the interviewer, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

I have never been in a Mormon church. I have never studied their doctrine to any great extent. That said, I have, however, heard a number of former Mormons state that the church does teach that Jesus and Satan are brothers.The interesting thing about this matter is the statement made by a spokeswoman for the Mormon church. We are not told in the article the exact question asked of the spokeswoman, but examine the response and see if you think it answers the question posed by Huckabee.

"We believe, as other Christians believe and as Paul wrote, that God is the father of all," said the spokeswoman, Kim Farah. "That means that all beings were created by God and are his spirit children. Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship him as the son of God and the savior of mankind. Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what he stands for."

That response didn't enlighten me at all as to whether they teach that Satan is the brother of Jesus. You could conclude, though not definitively, that they don't believe Satan was "begotten in the flesh." You could not conclude that they teach that Satan was not begotten as a son of God the Father.