The Blood Letting Begins. A good sign that Calvinism is truly in resurgence in the SBC is that the Arminians have noticed and have started to try and squelch the movement. Two of the leading Arminians are the Caner brothers. Ergun of Liberty University and Emir of the undergraduate school at Southwestern Seminary. They are vocal opponents, although I not think they are always accurate.

Now, the Caner brothers have decided to have a tag team match. Their opponents in the debate will be Tom Ascol of the Founders and James White, a leading apologist. It is billed as "Baptists and Calvinism: A Debate at the New Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Virginia". Ascol and White are brave to go into the lions den for the debate. It is scheduled for Monday, October 16th, 2006, at 7pm.

James White is formidable in writing and in speech. The Caners will have their hands full. Unfortunately, it probably won't matter. The crowd will be dominated by Liberty University folks who won't come to learn but to cheer their dean. Those who do come to learn will hear some good stuff.

First Things has an interesting article about what a sad little place Baylor University has become since running off Robert Sloan. Having such a disparaging article in a prestigious publication will further diminish BU's image.

I'm a Wanted Man. At least, that's what www.reunion.com tells me. They send me an email regularly, telling me how many people are looking for me. I'm up to 29. That's about how many people have ever read this blog.

My guess is there are many Larry Thompson's to look for and the 29 include all of them all over the world. I truthfully cannot think of 29 people who would care where I was enough to look. I did live in a lot of places, but I have lived here for 28 years and haven't had 29 phone calls this year. And that counts the 5 calls from the Mexican lady that kept calling my cell phone 2 nights ago and could not understand me saying "sorry, wrong number".

It is interesting, though, how we get older and wonder where someone is and try to find them. "I wonder how old so and so is doing?" We did not care enough to keep track of them, but now we go and look for them. I guess, as we get older, we realize that relationships and friendships really are more important than career ladders, so we try to resurrect them.

If you want to find someone bad enough, you can. I had the urge a few years ago. I had a really good friend in junior high in a small town in which I lived. I found someone who knew where his father lived. I called his father and got my old friend's address. I wrote him. He never replied.

I'm not going to pay Reunion dot com to see if the searches for my name are really for me or some handsome high school friend folks want to reconnect with. But I understand the urge. I think I'll just put more effort into keeping the friends I have.

A fun blog: http://purgatorio1.com/

The Religious Congregations and Membership study published in 2000 by the Glenmary Research Center revealed that the Southern Baptist Convention grew at a rate of 5 percent from 1990 to 2000. That sounds ok until you consider this. Wver that same decade, the Presbyterian Church in America, PCA, grew by 42.4 percent. The Evangelical Free Church grew by 57.2 percent.

The question is why. As Baptistis adopted the church growth method and seeker friendly worship styles, our growth rate slowed dramatically. However, people continue to tell us if we do not embrace these ideas more firmly, we will not grow. Remember the definition of insanity: doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Or, think of it as the announcement from the pilot who said I have good news and bad news. The bad news is our instruments are broken and we do not know which direction we are going. The good news is, we are making really good time.

Part of the question the SBC should answer is, where id the PCA and the EFC get is members? Neither are known for evangelism to the extent the SBC has been. If the answer is, they are getting their membership from SBC churches, someone needs to reevaluate.

I do not know the answer to the question. I do know many members of my SBC church have left for a local Bible Church that has become quite popular, especially with the professional set.

I guess also, to be candid, I am not a good barometer for what makes a good church, because I am tired of most of the gimics and productions. I am more in the mood for simple. Give me good preaching and let me sing a few good songs and let me go.

This is not going to help his case. Zacarias Moussaoui testified today that he and Richard Reid were supposed to hijack another airplane on 9-11 and fly it into the White House.

Good news. Todan the Afghan court dismissed the case against Abdul Rahman, arrested for being a Christian. The government said he would be released soon. The further good news is they did not decide he was insance, although the exact reasons seem a little murky. The spokesman said it was due to a lack of evidence, het Rahman has repeatedly confessed his Christianity.

God bless Condolezza Rice for putting pressure on President Karzai. Thanks also go to our allies, particularly Germany and Italy for thepressure they applied.
Now we will have to hope he is not murdered in jail or by militants stiffed bup by their blood thirsty ministers.