Potpourri: should women teach men, writer's block, common false Gospels, & more

Patrick Deenan discusses How a Generation Lost its Common Culture
The essay discusses how the educational system has contributed to a massive and widespread ignorance in today's youth, a dearth of critical thinking, and wide-eyed panic when asked simple questions about history.


A good reference to Common False Gospels, with scripture included to refute them

Sunny Shell with an oldie but a goodie on What Do Beth Moore, Ann Voskamp, and Sarah Young have in common?

Being missionally legalistic? Desiring God discusses.

God’s Big Work and Your Little Mission

Many people wrongly believe that Christianity is simply a new set of rules and guidelines for how to behave. More recently, due to the widespread emphasis on missional living, it’s the “missional to-do list” that now determines our personal righteousness. In both cases, people find themselves feeling more like spiritual slaves than gospel-freed children of God.

I posted this the other day in a stand-alone piece but it's too good not to post again. Here is Kevin DeYoung with 15 discernment diagnostics 

The false teachers like Beth Moore, Christine Caine and others have provided a poor example to women in terms of how far they can go with teaching men, and when they stand in for pastors at the Sunday Pulpit. Christianity Today articulated this trend in an unfortunate article stating, What Happens When We See Women Teach the Bible, because "a figure like Beth Moore shows evangelical women what’s possible".

Yes, Moore does show us what's possible, but not what's biblical. A generation of younger women have now been inoculated against the prohibition of women teaching men in church and other orthodox settings. Recently Housewife theologian Aimee Byrd started the downhill slide, while Mary Kassian still seems to be holding to biblical truth. Here are two articles on the subject.

I agree with the second, by Kassian, (except for #7, that bullet point I disagree with). I do not agree with Aimee Byrd's overall stance, sadly.

Aimee Byrd:What is Sunday School? What Does it Appear to Be? And Who Can Teach It?

Mary Kassian:Women Teaching Men- How Far is Too Far?

And then Wendy at Practical Theology for Women has a response to Kassian's piece. Good food for thought in all.

Tony Reinke is a Christian who writes about writing. He noted this week the difference between writing as a prose/novelist and writing non-fiction as a journalist. Having been both, I liked his comparison. He said the following in the piece titled Writers Block and Research,

You never want to solve a research problem with language. You never want to become such a fine writer that you can thread the needle and get through a thin patch in your research because you’re such a great prose artist.

I thought about how pastors do this with writing sermons ... and then about how bloggers do this...and prayed I never fall into that trap! Anyway, I recommend his blog.

Robin Schumacher is a great writer who produces substantive pieces. He offers this piece in the wrongs of the charismatic movement, saying,

I wasn’t necessarily upset that nothing supernatural occurred to me that night, but it did cause me to start researching the whole idea that the miracle gifts described in the New Testament were still active today. What I discovered many years ago needs to be understood – I think now more than ever – by all Christians, especially those involved in charismatic assemblies.

Go to Real Wrongs of the Charismatic Movement for more.

Sonnet 18, often alternatively titled Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?, is one of the best-known of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. My favorite quote from that sonnet is

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

In Maine, where I lived for 30 years, this is truer than true. Summer was fleeting and rather almost mournful because as soon as you began to relax and enjoy it, summer was over. I'm in Georgia now, and for me, the length of summer is just right. Even though there are false teachers, wayward theologians, charismatic chaos, and all the rest, birds still sing, gentle warm air wafts, children play, teachers educate, and life goes on. God made a beautiful world and for me, summer highlights its beauty more than any other season. (Except maybe spring, lol).

Whether you live in Arizona or Maine or Florida, summer is here with the opening threshold of Memorial Day upcoming in just a few days. I hope you have a safe and enjoyable summer. For me, this means school is over and my labors as a teacher's aide will cease for a spell. I don't think anyone looks forward to summer more than educators...unless perhaps it's the kids!