Online discourse is so broken and hypocritical at this point. It functions as a machine for feeding polarization and creating false dichotomies. If you're not 100% with us, then you're against us. If you won't denounce the right people, you're suspect. If you won't declare allegiance to the right people, you're disloyal. That has become the functional mantra of the age. We really need to stop respecting it. The answer, however, is not to pretend that every issue has some magical middle ground. Sometimes there really are only two options. Sometimes one side is right and the other is wrong. The problem isn't that people recognize binaries where they exist. The problem is that they impose binaries where they don't. The same thing goes for nuance. The problem was never nuance itself. Nuance is good when it helps us describe reality more accurately. But for years, calls for "more nuance" were often used to soften truths people didn't like and avoid making clear judgments. Adding precision to a true statement is one thing. Qualifying it until it means nothing is another. The result is that we've managed to corrupt both bluntness and nuance. Bluntness becomes sloganeering. Nuance becomes evasion. Binaries are imposed where they don't exist, and distinctions are erased where they do. There are often more options than the hard binaries people present. There is often room for careful distinctions. But there is also a time to say that something is simply true or false, right or wrong. Everyone seems to have overreacted. The people who abused nuance have convinced others that precision is impossible. The people who abused third-wayism have convinced others that every question has only two sides. The result is an increasingly irrational public discourse where people demand loyalty more than truth. We don't have to play along.

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” — Proverbs 13:20

Had a joyful morning, preaching to the saints gathered at Christ Reformed Baptist Church of Northwest Arkansas this morning, at the invitation of @CalrissianCredo. Wonderful, hospitable people doing great work in Bella Vista and the surrounding area. Pray for them!

I’ve seen many questions about the SBC and Mohler amendment along the lines of “but what about our church council?” Or “what about our executive leadership board?” Those questions illustrate how unwise it is to base our polity on corporate business practices and not the Bible.

Let me be more clear: open communion is NOT compatible with the BFM or with Scripture. Yet, many SBC churches practice it. Time to up our ecclesiology game.

"So much the more abundantly became it thy sons to rejoice, for that our King hath bound the strong man, and that they saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and to be made serviceable for the Lord, unto every good work." ~St. Augustine’s Confessions Praise God.

Libertarian Free Will.

Alternative headline: SBC obeys scripture and follows 2000 years of church history.

If you want to obey, you must have salvation* FTFY

Colorado is in stage 3 drought emergency. If only we would stop killing babies and repent as a nation.

The people calling you N@zis believe in eugenics via abortion.

It’s the Lord’s Day, gents “There could be no sharper goad to arouse mutual love among us than when Christ, giving Himself to us, not only invites us by his example to pledge and to give ourselves to one another, but as He makes Himself common to all, so also makes all one in Himself.” - John Calvin

Michael Spangler (whose ordination was revoked by his former Presbyterian denomination) and his followers argue that the error of Peter in Galatians 2 was only about Judaizing and therefore has nothing to do with ethnicity. They argue that because the underlying heresy was justification by works, Paul’s rebuke has no application to modern attempts to divide Christians along racial or ethnic lines. But this misses the point entirely. No one denies that the Judaizers were teaching a false gospel. The question is how Peter participated in that error. Peter did not deny justification by faith with his mouth. Peter did not begin preaching salvation by circumcision. Peter’s sin was his conduct. He withdrew from Gentile believers and separated himself from them. Why did Paul rebuke him so publicly? Because Peter’s actions communicated something false about the nature of Christ’s church. His separation suggested that faith in Christ was not enough for full fellowship among God’s people. A dividing wall had been rebuilt where Christ had torn one down. In his article on race realism, Spangler spends much of his time defending propositions that are not actually in dispute. Churches are often homogeneous. Churches are often shaped by language, nation, culture, and providence. Different peoples have different histories, customs, and strengths. None of that proves his point. The issue is not whether churches are often homogeneous. The issue is whether race and ancestry may become a principle of ecclesiastical separation. A church that happens to be predominantly one ethnicity is one thing. A church that is intentionally organized around ethnicity, and which directs otherwise qualified Christians elsewhere because of their race, is something very different. Spangler appeals repeatedly to prudence. He argues that separation may be justified by social tensions, cultural differences, immigration, national concerns, or the preservation of a people. But the Judaizers also had prudential arguments. They wanted peace between Jews and Gentiles. They wanted continuity with ancient customs. They wanted to avoid scandal among conservative Jews. They wanted to preserve a distinct people. Paul did not deny that tensions existed. He did not deny that practical concerns were real. He asked a different question: Was Peter’s conduct in step with the truth of the gospel? That is still the question. A nation may have concerns about preserving its culture, customs, language, and people. Families certainly have an interest in preserving their own heritage and lineage. But the church is not a nation, and it is not an ethnic association. The church is the assembly of those united to Christ by faith. The New Testament recognizes nations, tribes, tongues, and peoples. It does not make ancestry a term of communion. This is why Galatians 2 speaks directly to what Michael Spangler is teaching. While he is not repeating the Judaizing error in exactly the same form, he is repeating the same pattern. He is introducing a new boundary marker into the church that Christ never established. He is treating race and ancestry as relevant to ecclesiastical fellowship in a way that the gospel does not permit. In one sense, this is even worse than the Judaizers. The Judaizers at least taught that a Gentile could become a Jew through circumcision and submission to the ceremonial law. Their solution was false and destructive, but it offered a path, however misguided, into the covenant community they envisioned. Spangler’s system offers no such path. The dividing line is not circumcision, ceremony, or culture. It is ancestry itself. The marker he introduces cannot be adopted, acquired, or changed. It is permanent. The gospel tears down dividing walls. Spangler rebuilds them. The gospel makes Jew and Gentile one new man in Christ.

Some women cannot fathom that there are women out there (dozens!) who actually believe the same things that men like Tom--not to mention the Bible--has to say about their roles in church life.

I like and promote video games. If you've got a thousand hours on one singular game...it's time to put the controller down.