Fundamentally Reformed Former independent fundamental Baptist discusses errors & weird traits of extreme fundamentalism, IFBx, KJV-only debate, contemporary Christian music [CCM], Calvinism/Covenant Theology, & the Bible, while promoting Christian unity & magnifying grace. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 7538 1 7341

Articles from Fundamentally Reformed

Why Mike Huckabee Can Win the General Election 2007-08-12 18:21:07 Momentum is Mike Huckabee’s friend right about now. He’s been riding it for quite some time. Huckabee scored big in yesterday’s Iowa Straw Poll by finishing solidly in 2nd place, with 18% of the vote. Romney spent literally millions more than Huckabee, and won first place with only 31% of the vote, even though the two other big name, top tier candidates didn’t participate. With characteristic charm, Huckabee remarked, “For us to finish second, for all intents and purposes, we won the Iowa straw poll. This is David and Goliath and one smooth stone.” (source, David Chalian of ABCNews.com). Huckabee may not be over exaggerating either. Chris Cillizza on his Washington Post political blog “The Fix”, suggested that Huckabee may well be the biggest winner from the straw poll. And “The Blue State”, a progressive blog without bias, predicts “Mike Huckabee is about to receive a huge bounce in the polls after finishing second ...

Orange No More 2007-08-12 01:37:44 Were any of you all sick of orange too? I have been yearning for a blog design change for a while now. And I had been hoping to get rid of some of the clutter in my sidebar. I don’t know if I succeeded in that, but I am happy with the new look. I wonder if anyone remembers the old Blogger version of this blog? Red, gray, and some tan — remember? Then who could forget the olive green garb the blog took on as I moved my blog to Wordpress, July of last year. Since March, I was using the three column orange themed design that hopefully you remember quite well. Well, this then is Fundamentally Reformed 4.0! I really like the color scheme and overall design. I am going to have to get used to having just one post display on the home page, however. That’s the main drawback, but there really aren’t any other choices I like for a three column design that uses widgets. Besides, this theme lends itself well to the use of more pages. And that is where I wanted to g ...

Baptism & Young Children 2007-08-10 07:19:47 A quick update here. Grudem responded to Piper’s rebuttal of Grudem’s change of his position on baptism and church membership. (That sentence is a mouthful!) Then Justin Taylor followed that up by highlighting two helpful articles by Vern Poythress. The first one is called “Indifferentism and Rigorism in the Church: With Implications for Baptizing Small Children“, and explores two attitudes to church membership and the nature of faith in little children (ages 2 and up). What Poythress says concerning the church in that paper is worth thinking through irrespective of the baptism position altogether — especially for us fundamentalist types. The second paper is more overtly connected to paedobaptism (Vern Poythress is paedo), and is entitled “Linking Small Children with Infants in the Theology of Baptizing“. It explores the implications of Jesus’ reception of the little children and the nature of our experiencing Jesus in the company of ... Amp  Children

Barry Bonds: A Bonafide Bid for “Baseball’s Best” 2007-08-09 19:00:29 Having lived in the San Francisco Bay area for a couple of years, I grew to appreciate Barry Bonds.  For the past five or six years as I’ve more closely followed his career, what continuously amazes me is how he stands head and shoulders above the rest.   No one is as feared a hitter as Bonds, and no one earns more walks. Despite the chorus of rolling eyes, sighs, and moans which I’m receiving right now, let me briefly explain my point of view, and point you to an excellent piece on Bonds and his greatness. Bonds has never been proven guilty of steroid-use, albeit from the news you’d have thought they already have a jail cell waiting for him.  But can steroids really improve your swing?  Can steroids earn you the batting crown?  Can steroids gain you such a fear among the league’s elite pitchers? Tony Gwynn, a baseball great of unstained reputation, made a comment a few years back.  He claimed Bonds had the purest swing in baseball.  Coming from baseball ... Baseball

Baptism and Church Membership 2007-08-09 09:31:34 In the past, I’ve explored the baptism debate on my blog. A friend of mine, Nathan Pitchford, has 4 excellent articles covering almost all sides of the debate. He started out defending Baptism from a Reformed, Covenantal perspective, but went on to retract his position and affirm a paedobaptistic view. I summarized that view as clearly as possible in an attempt to hone in on the real areas of dispute. Many a Baptist would roll his eyes at my attempts to understand the other side. What’s the point? I’m sure that would have been my view, back when I was a dyed-in-the-wool strict fundamentalist. Of course our view is right, its historical (think Trail of Blood, here)! Even after coming to leave strict fundamentalism and embrace Calvinism, I still had much skepticism over any non-Baptist view. So I wasn’t prepared for the dramatic results of entering the debate. I quickly learned that the Reformed paedobaptistic view has a lot of Biblical support. This is a ...

Man-Centered Christianity (part 2) 2007-08-08 14:43:13 ** first read part 1 Jesus is our buddy, and God is our friend. Christ is hip, and church is cool. This sentiment is alive and well in today’s American Christianity, along with: God has a special plan for your life. You are very special to Him. The problem with the Church today is that we are using God. Like Aladdin, we depend on our genie to help us live a meaningful and happy life. Afraid of hell, or guilty over sin? Pray a prayer, and Jesus takes care of it. Worry on the job, stress in your family situation? The Bible has the answer, its God’s guidebook for life. Longing for true acceptance and love? No one loves you like Jesus does! In the church we all love each other and look out for one another. It takes a trained eye, but do you see how the above concerns all center around self and self-esteem? Perhaps its no wonder, then, that Jesus is also offered among evangelicals today, as one who can guarantee that you will get what you want, that you will get rich ...

2000 2007-08-08 12:49:31 2000! Congratulations to Don Fields (of World from My Window) for leaving the 2000th comment on my blog. This is my 352nd post, and I have had more than 2000 genuine comments now! Of course this doesn’t count the spam. I’ve personally deleted many spam/offensive comments over the years, and since July of 2006, Akismet, the spam-guard feature of Wordpress, has deleted close to 20,000 spam comments here. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to celebrate the big 2,000 mark! I guess that is testimony to my blogging interaction ability (recently awarded). I praise God for many fruitful discussions, and even for the challenging and sometimes negative feedback. The blog has been a blessing over the last 22 months. I’m looking forward now to my official 2 year anniversary on November 22nd (the first real blog post, and the start of my official blogging). ...

Man-Centered Christianity? 2007-08-07 12:08:31 Many times labels are a bit self-serving. After all, “I” am God-centered, Gospel-centered, Christ-centered, God-saturated, etc. etc. And of course you aren’t. Oh, and I’m orthodox, my beliefs are historical and Biblical, and Spurgeon agrees with my position! Labels are at the same time helpful. There is an orthodox position. History does matter, and gospel-centered does mean something. Perhaps an aversion to any kind of theological pride in labels is behind recent blog discussion (by those Phil Johnson calls “post-evangelical”) centering on the question, “Can you be too God-Centered?” While some good points are raised concerning that question, from my vantage point the overwhelming problem in evangelicalism today is that far too many are man-centered. I don’t want to merely throw out such a label in hopes of scoring points. And I realize no one will be standing in line to claim the label I’m describing here! But this i ...

Presbyterians on Fundamentalism 2007-08-06 15:59:38 Some of you may have missed this. Rick Phillips and Carl Trueman commented on BJU-style fundamentalism on Reformation 21’s blog [Phillips’ initial post, clarification#1, clarification #2, Trueman’s post, Phillips’ response — all these are quite brief, BTW]. Sean Lucas, of Covenant Theological Seminary, followed up with some reflections of his own [post 1, post 2], as one who graduated from both BJU and Westminster. I don’t have much time right now to comment much on the discussions, but there is plenty of food for thought there. Rick praises fundamentalism deservedly, while Trueman and Lucas make sure we beware of errors which are especially prone in fundamentalism. And on the heels of this discussion, Bob Bixby discusses what he sees as the “emerging middle” — a coming together of conservative evangelicals and “young” fundamentalists. His article is also worthy of attention. I agree with much that is said by the Pre ...

“Here Is Love” by Steve & Vikki Cook 2007-08-03 07:42:47 It’s been a while since I featured a modern praise song here. As regular readers of my blog know, from time to time, I share a particularly good song. I stick to modern praise songs because they are so often spurned or ignored among fundamentalists and other conservative evangelicals. Yes there is a lot of fluff out there, but there are some excellent and worthy songs which we should not hesitate to use. Many of these songs are suitable in a variety of accompaniments or styles, too. Many of my favorite modern worship songs are produced by the folks at Sovereign Grace Ministries. Apparently, in the intervening months since the last time I highlighted one of their songs, SGM has updated their website. This makes it easier to find songs and music samples, etc. But this means I have to update all my old links. If you aren’t familiar with SGM’s music, you really need to be! They are producing some of the finest, Christ-centered, doctrinally rich, tasteful music ... Amp

Minnesota Bridge Collapse & Thinking About Tragedies 2007-08-02 00:43:59 Last night, while we were gathered at a local park with fellow church members from our church, we were informed of the bridge collapse on I-35W in Minneapolis (which happened at 6:05pm Central time). As most of you should know, we live in St. Paul, MN and so the bridge tragedy struck close to home. In fact the bridge was just blocks away from our church’s downtown campus. So I can thankfully say we are all just fine, and unaffected by the collapse. I had relatives call me last night (my parents in Africa had even heard about the collapse and called us before we could get back home from church) and 2 blogging friends email me to make sure we were okay. It is nice to know that people care about you, in times like these. Considering this tragedy, with 7 people dead and 38 or so more injured (as of the time of this writing), I thought it would be a good time to rehash how Christians should view such tragedies. And I can do no better than to direct you all to go read my pasto ... Amp

I Can Schmooze 2007-08-01 15:48:40 Schmooze — to “talk idly or casually and in a friendly way” (4th result at dictionary.com) I am honored to be the recipient of the award you see here on the right. I guess this makes it official: I can schmooze! I wish I could say that my schmoozing talents have gotten me somewhere in life, but they haven’t (yet). I guess they have helped my blogging, but then my blog is not all that much to speak of. But I digress. The award was created by Mike (at Ordinary Folk) and Danielle (at Pink Reviews) to help “recognize those people that were [are] exceptionally adept at creating relationships with other bloggers by making an effort to be part of a conversation, as opposed to monologue“. So that makes this reward more of an honor than an insult. I do a good job of interacting, as the comments here attest. Although some of that is due to the controversial nature of some of the posts around here! Anyways, let me officially thank Casey (at Casey’s ...

An Honest KJV Advocate & Another Wacky KJV Only Website 2007-07-31 14:58:16 On one of my posts dealing with the King James Only movement, I recently had someone leave a comment directing me to an article he had written entitled “Dangers of ‘KJV Onlyism’ or KJV Perfectionism”. Upon going to his website, I discovered that this guy preferred the KJV and even thought it is the most accurate English Bible translation available. Yet he took issue with KJV Onlyists. Why? Aside from his conclusion that the extreme KJVO views are very problematic, this man actually owned up to the fact that the KJV has a few minor errors! An Honest KJV Advocate Here is a man who deserves to be recognized. He upholds the KJV as the most accurate translation and at the same time feels no compulsion to explain away any and all errors in it. This man is an honest KJV advocate! Sadly, most American advocates (this man is from England) of the KJV, even those who agree that the Greek and Hebrew texts underlying the KJV are more important for study than the Engli ... Amp

Almost Back 2007-07-26 07:35:42 I’m back, but not quite back to blogging full steam. I hope to catch up on comments and etc. later today. For now, the Calvinist debate continues at Contend Earnestly. I’m sure that they’re going to forever solve the age old dilemma . Seriously, though, it is a charitable debate with lots of Scripture. So any of you who are still figuring out where you stand on this subject, or for those trying to understand those on either position, check it out! Oh, and check out a great post over there on why Calvinists evangelize. And if you really like debates, you could find the the discussion on music over at Jackhammer interesting. I don’t like to jump into the fray over there all that much, the hammers can be deadly. But they like to counter my points on music over here. For now, the comments here are full enough on this topic. If others want to interact with me on the subject feel free to add comments on one of these recent posts: “Music, Morality ...

FYI, Folks… 2007-07-22 03:42:50 I’ll be gone through Wednesday. I just wanted to let you know. Feel free to peruse my archives, or keep up with Kingdom Surge, my new team mission blog. I do plan on updating Kingdom Surge while I’m gone. By the way, now is a good time to ask some of you to link to Kingdom Surge. If you like what you see, spread the word and join the cause of stirring up the blogging community to more intentional missions outreach to the unreached peoples of the world. And since some of you will be interested, let me highlight a couple series of posts I stumbled upon after my lengthy blogroll earlier this week. Contend Earnestly is hosting an email debate on Calvinism. This promises to be interesting, and so far everything has been very charitable. Let me challenge some of you non-Calvinists out there, to check out the debate. You will at the very least come to appreciate many of the Biblical reasons so many have for embracing Calvinism. And finally, my blogging pal John Chitty has ...