Newsweek had their “Easter issue” out on Monday with a cover story by editor John Meacham titled, “The End of Christian America.” Regulars of this blog will enjoy reading the piece. It was special fun for me as the focus of much of the article was Meacham’s interview with my own boss, who then followed up the Newsweek piece with a blog post of his own, then radio. It has been a great week for conversation about such things.

Here is an excerpt from the opening:

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly…

USA Today has a story out today (Thursday) analyzing results released today from the latest Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

“Most American religious believers, including most Christians, say eternal life is not exclusively for those who accept Christ as their savior, a new survey finds.

Of the 65% of people who held this open view of heaven’s gates, 80% named at least one non-Christian group — Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists or people with no religion at all — who may also be saved, according to a new survey released today by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.”

The “including most Christians” part is a symptom of the rampant doctrinal confusion that abounds within Christianity today.

I suggest that the folks the article calls “most Christians”, the ones who believe that salvation outside of Christ is possible - they should at least be consistent and make a…

ABC News is in the process of visiting “50 States in 50 Days.” Today they broadcasted their visit to my new state of residence, Kentucky. They actually filmed the piece last Friday.

How do I know that? Because in a state of 40,000 square miles and 4.2 million people, they chose my boss and our office as the launching pad for their story. Click here for the ABC video (Yes, the link does work. No, it does not work for everyone’s computer and/or browser).

I think it is hilarious because, given the parameters of the series, the story could have been about ANYTHING - as long as it touched briefly on the fall election and something to do with Kentucky.

They could have gone to Churchill Downs and asked folks leaving the races their thoughts on the race, for President that is. They could have gone to tobacco farmers to ask about health care or…

On the cross of Calvary, God poured out his wrath on Christ, in the place of sinners.

Do you think that such a notion is a “twisted version of events,” or “morally dubious,” or a “huge barrier to faith”?Do you think that the doctrine of penal substitution, God punishing Christ in our place, is a form of “cosmic child abuse”?

Did you know that there is an ongoing debate among some in the evangelical camp who are embarrassed and even hate the truth claim that Jesus’ death was a divine wrath-bearing event?

A brand new book by Zondervan brings forth part of this discussion, focusing on the controversy as it appeared in the UK in the Evangelical Alliance. The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement is a collection of papers from a symposium held by the Evangelical Alliance and the London School of Theology. Here is the description…

Is explicit faith in Christ necessary for eternal salvation?

Without a doubt, a question like this is provocative and elicits passion from all religious corners. However, questions like this are of foundational importance, so I am quite sure that these very topics will, in one shape or form, become part of the regular conversation around here on our blog.

In a brand new book, Faith Comes by Hearing: A Response to Inclusivism, nine Christian theologians give us an excellent introduction to this topic, arguing against the idea that salvation can take place apart from knowledge of Jesus Christ.

One of the editors, Robert Peterson, is a professor of theology here in St. Louis at Covenant Theological Seminary. There are a lot of new terms to get a handle on in this discussion, so Peterson opens with an introduction that defines the terms for us:

Pluralism is the view that all religions lead to God. It…