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Articles by Mark DeMoss
Classic & Contemporary Excerpts from April 28, 1997
1997This article is part of CT's digital archives. Subscribers have access to all current and past issues, dating back to 1956. This month marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Aiden Wilson Tozer, prolific author and popular preacher. Though lacking a formal education beyond grade school, A. W. Tozer in 1919 began a lifelong pastoral ministry in the Christian and Missionary Alliance and was regarded by many as a prophet for his time.
Easter Bombings Kill 200 in Sri Lanka
The joy of Easter quickly turned into terror and grief for Christians in Sri Lanka this morning, where bombers conducted coordinated attacks on at least three churches and three high-end hotels, killing more than 200 people. The government has urged citizens to resist speculating whether radicalized Muslims are to blame for the violence, which mostly took place in or around the capital city of Colombo.
Sovereign Grace Calls Outside Investigation ‘Impossible’
Despite continued calls for an independent, third-party investigation into Sovereign Grace Churches (SGC) and its response to abuse allegations, the network has officially taken the option off the table, calling it “inappropriate, impractical, unjust” and “impossible.” Controversy has surrounded SGC—previously Sovereign Grace Ministries, or SGM—and its founder C. J.
‘Being Christian Without the Church’ Fails the Good Friday......
We Americans tend to be a sentimental people. This makes it difficult for us to look directly into the horror, shame, and degradation of a death by crucifixion. When Jesus says to Mary, “Woman, behold thy son” and to John “Behold thy Mother,” we often interpret this saying of our Lord as a sentimental invitation to take good care of your mother. I am a mother, and I definitely want to be taken care of! But this is not what the Fourth Evangelist, John, wants us to understand.
Jesusy' Anne Lamott
2003This article is part of CT's digital archives. Subscribers have access to all current and past issues, dating back to 1956. She came to Jesus just as she was—a foul-mouthed, bulimic, alcoholic drug addict. One week after having an abortion, she surrendered to him in her very own version of the sinner's prayer, punctuated with the f-word.
Judeo-Christian Politics … in Israel?
In one of the most tightly contested Israeli elections in years, Benjamin Netanyahu appears poised to remain prime minister. His Likud party is projected to win 35 seats in the 120-member parliament, the Knesset, tied with challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party; but coalition partners will likely boost the incumbent Bibi to a governing majority of 65. But for Christians in Israel, could the most significant electoral development have come from a new party that won a total of zero seats?
Christ's Confident Resolve
“So again Pilate asked him, ‘Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of’” (Mark 15:4). When we approach Easter, there are many things we think about: Jesus’ death in our place, the disciples’ lack of understanding, God’s choice to have women be the first witnesses to the empty tomb, resurrection hope. There is a multitude of directions to go when thinking about the end of this most significant week in history.
Andy Crouch: All Flourishing Requires Risk
Andy Crouch: All Flourishing Requires Risk Are you an image bearer, or are you in poverty, safety or idolatry? By utilizing a 2 x 2 grid, Andy explores the four quadrants of the various relationships between authority and vulnerability. He surmises that high authority and high vulnerability are ideal since other combinations of the two lead to forms of poverty, safety, idolatry and injustice.
Pastor Parking Paves the Way for Controversial Church Taxe......
A new provision in the corporate tax code has some churches and other tax-exempt nonprofits wondering if they’ll really be on the hook for paying a “parking tax” this year. 2018 was the first year nonprofits were subject to a tax of 21 percent on employee benefits like parking and transportation stipends, under tax reforms passed by the GOP-controlled Congress the year before. The new tax is expected to cost nonprofits $1.7 billion over the next 10 years.
Died: Robert Finley, Reformer of Foreign Missions
Robert Finley—who founded Christian Aid Mission, considered the first missionary organization dedicated to supporting indigenous missions abroad—died last week at age 96. Finley’s long ministry career intersects with major evangelical leaders and organizations, and his early insistence in the effectiveness of local missionaries over Western outsiders has become a driving principle among missions experts.
Is Jesus the Surgeon or the Scalpel?
In the mid-2000s, I spent several years as a youth pastor. One of the most rewarding aspects of working with teens was seeing their eagerness to bring about positive change in the world. On almost a weekly basis, they would share with me about some new global crisis they had discovered and their wide-ranging ideas for how we could do something about it. Wanting to empower our students, we often took their ideas and ran with them.
Our Secret African Heritage
Image: Illustration by Laura James Sometimes it is hard to remember just how I'm connected to some of my relatives. Beyond first cousins, it can be tricky to explain (or remember) what the relationship is. One of my cousins even calls himself my "imaginary cousin." (My father's parents fostered his mother. I don't know what that makes me to him. Yet we feel related.) My father must have had a similar difficulty remembering family connections.
Azusa Pacific Drops Ban on Same-Sex Student Relationships,......
Azusa Pacific University (APU) has gone back and forth this school year on whether to allow students to date members of the same sex. Last week, the Southern California Christian college decided, once again, to remove a ban on “romanticized” same-sex relationships from its code of student conduct. APU had initially made the same change in the fall, only to reverse the decision when its board of trustees said it had never approved the change.
ECFA Revokes Harvest Bible Chapel’s Membership
Update (April 17): Harvest Bible Chapel has lost its standing with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), months after controversy over founding pastor James MacDonald culminated with his firing. The ECFA board voted today to terminate the Chicago-area church’s membership status due to “significant violations” to four of seven of the association’s financial standards, citing “direct and substantial evidence” uncovered in the past week.
Lessons from Evangelicalism’s PR Guru
Image: Ryan Gibson I’ve spent my entire professional life at the intersection of two fields increasingly held in low esteem by much of society: public relations and Christianity. In January, nearly two years removed from cancer treatment, I announced my decision to close the PR firm that bears my name, after occupying a front-row seat for so much evangelical history.
Gleanings: March 2019
Image: RaStudio / Getty Asia Bibi exonerated, awaits asylum After eight years in prison and on death row, Asia Bibi no longer faces legal threats over allegations of blasphemy. In January, the Supreme Court upheld her acquittal and denied requests for further review made by the Muslim leader who brought charges against her. But the Pakistani Christian remains in danger of violence from vigilantes and has struggled to obtain asylum elsewhere, as her daughters have in Canada.
Who Says Social Media Can’t Make You Wise?
Facebook decided to kick off 2019 with a challenge: Compare your first profile picture to your most recent one to see how hard aging hit you over the past ten years. I pulled up my first profile picture and stared at it, the air exiting my lungs and an odd numbness seeping up from my toes. Hello, fresh-faced person. I remember you. I remember that shirt, the wallpaper in that kitchen, that haircut.
New & Noteworthy Fiction
Virgil Wander Leif Enger (Grove Press) From the beloved author of Peace Like a River comes an endearing, beautifully rendered tale about a languid Minnesota town and its quirky inhabitants. Virgil Wander just survived a near-death experience that took his memory and, more confounding to Virgil, his words. As he struggles to make sense of a once-familiar world, his life entwines with a puzzling kite-maker searching for a son he didn’t know he had—a son who went missing years ago.
Dutch Asylum Service Concludes With Its Final ‘Amen’
Update (Feb. 1): “Hooray! The church is closed,” declared a sign on the door to Bethel Church in the Netherlands this week. This sanctuary in The Hague emptied for the first time in more than three months after a continuous church service held to protect a refugee family from deportation finally came to an end, following a government compromise in their favor.
Sparing Nineveh: US Pledges $300 Million So Iraq’s Christians Can Return Home
A new round of funding, plus improved processes, will help minority faiths rebuild four years after ISIS pushed them out. Email Address Subscribe to the selected newsletters. The problems facing persecuted faiths in the Middle East are too complex to be fixed by money alone. But experts are hopeful that doubling US assistance to Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, along with improved understanding of the region’s minority groups, will make a major difference for Christians returning there.
The Divine Grace of the IRS
When the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that scholarship-receiving Northwestern University football players were deemed university employees and thus should be able to unionize, I had the strangest reaction, strange at least for a libertarian-leaner who believes everyone should pay less tax.
Special Needs Kids Don’t Need Special Parents
It was just a piece of paper, weighing less than an ounce, but it was the heaviest burden I would ever hold. Some papers cut deeper than others: divorce papers, a Do Not Resuscitate form, or even a pink slip. Are they “just a piece of paper”? Hardly. On August 20, 2004, a four-by-six-inch piece of paper leveled my world, when a pediatric neurologist scribbled onto a prescription pad and slid it across his desk: Patient meets diagnostic criterion 299.00 of the DSM-IV. Moderate to severe autism.
Taylor University Still Shaken by Unsanctioned Conservativ......
A month later, Taylor University is still buzzing about an underground publication, Excalibur, which claimed the evangelical college was becoming more liberal on sex, immigration, and race. True to its namesake, the controversial newsletter sliced through campus conversation, drawing students and staff to take sides in classroom discussions, op-eds, and official communications since its February 21 release.
Why I’m Happy My Son Married at 20
Our firstborn got married this past July, and we are overjoyed for him and his wife. They’d dated long-distance for two years. After hours-long Skype conversations and scads of money spent on air travel, they were more than ready to tie the knot and start their life together. All four of us newly minted in-laws are in full support of this marriage. We have watched our children bloom within this relationship. We see them bring out the best in the other. We know they are earnestly following Christ.
Inside the Museum of the Bible
Image: Courtesy of The Museum of the Bible Two blocks south of the National Mall in Washington, DC, a stately brick building with a recessed entrance faces Fourth Street. On either side of the entrance, two bronze doors the height of upended school buses stand adorned with the text of the Gutenberg Bible.
The speech that could have saved Trump: Mark DeMoss
My fellow Americans, early in my campaign for the Republican nomination for president, I was asked by a reporter whether I had ever felt the need to ask for God’s forgiveness. I responded by saying I didn’t think I ever had. That was a stupid thing for anyone to say — but especially me! I’ve now concluded I not only need to seek God’s forgiveness for many things, I also need to ask for forgiveness from so many others. But let me start with God.
My Son’s Autism Changed Everything-Even Our Church
Editor’s note: National Autism Awareness Month is coming up in April. More than 3.5 million Americans live with autism spectrum disorder, whose symptoms vary widely from case to case. In light of the growing prevalence of autism, parents and church leaders are speaking out about the church’s role in welcoming families of children with autism or other developmental disorders. Below, Sandra Peoples shares her family’s story. You can also read five tips for churches from writer Nish Weiseth.
‘As Long as the Baby’s Healthy’… But What if He’s Not?
My son Ace was born seven weeks ago. He is my third baby, a boy like his brothers. He has blue eyes and sandy brown hair that’s making way for blonde. He can already reach out and grab the toy that hangs over his head. He has rolled over twice (accidentally, I’m pretty sure). Yet everything feels different. My pregnancy with him was different. In December my husband and I received a prenatal diagnosis that shook us. Though we shared it with close friends and family, we didn’t tell anyone else.
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