"God be merciful to us & bless us, & cause His face to shine upon us.
That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.
Let the peoples praise You, O God; Let all the peoples praise You.
Oh, let the nations be glad & sing for joy!"
Gnostic Trends in the Local Church
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Here is a link to take you to a new review of my book, "Gnostic Trends in the Local Church". It's over at the Colson Center. Gnostic Trends in the Local Church
John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA. A university founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church. He originally published "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction" in 2011, and it was revised in 2016. This 328-page paperback is packed full with Colonial and American history, drawing from original sources to answer that question. It is a book written "for the historically minded and thoughtful reader who is looking for help in sorting" out this question, avoiding polemics (xix). Since we live in a sound-bite culture, Fea recognizes that it is difficult to have a sustained dialogue on this topic, but he makes a valiant effort toward having that sustained dialogue. The book reads fairly straightforward, and doesn't seem to get bogged down in the contentious mudpuddles or bogs. In the end, Fea seems to get his point across. To answer the reigning question if America was founded as a Christian...
I know lots of people like this book, and like this stream of published material. I'm not a Dispensationalist (by conviction) and I am resistant to alarmism - that doom-and-gloomism that says "This is the worst time in all of world history!" or some such. And that is this book from cover-to-cover. I picked the book up to read because a family member had given it to me for a Christmas present and thought I should read it. And I was disappointed. But, in all of my disappointment, I was pleasantly surprised. I was pleasantly surprised because Dr. Jeremiah actually pushes back against a certain mindset that normally walks along with Dispensational alarmism. Jeremiah asks "Will America revive again? Will we reverse our descent and regain respect, strength, and stability? ... those are not the questions we should really be asking. If the survival of America and the stability of the world are the sources of your hope, then your hope is sadly misplaced. The question you mu...
I hesitate to put this out there because of the combative environment we are in at present. But I think some souls will take courage from this, and some will also join with me as we get to the end of this little composition. I am struck by the words of God in Zechariah 8. As he rehearses the waywardness and faithlessness of his people in the past, he clearly declares that he " set every man against his neighbor " (8:10). That got me thinking long ago. I started putting the pieces together and realized that one of God's acts of judgment is division, setting a man against his neighbor. That's what happened when he divided his people into the northern tribes and southern tribes (see 1 Kings 11:26-40). Because of Solomon's turning aside, allowing his wives to turn his heart away from the God of his father, David, the Lord brings about a rift in God's people. And this pattern of divisive judgment runs throughout Scripture. On the other hand, truthful unity is the g...
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