Saturday Lagniappe: 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Copy a Mega-Church and More

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Copy a Mega-Church Churches copying churches has been a longstanding problem. Before megachurches arrived on the scene, small churches were copying larger churches. In the Anglican Church parish churches were copying cathedrals. But what woks for one church may not work for another church. What may e the key to success in one community many not fit the lock in another community.

Damn the Curse of Ham: How Genesis 9 Got Twisted into Racist Propaganda We also live in a time when those who identify themselves as Christians are tempted to twist Scripture to perpetuate all kinds of harmful narratives and to justify all kinds of objectionable practices.

One Baptism or Two? What Are We to Make of the Spirit Baptism in Acts 8? Belief in a second work of grace--Spirit baptism--found in charismatic and Pentecostal churches has its roots in the Holiness Movement and evangelical Arminian, or Wesleyan, theology. It is based upon an erroneous interpretation of Scripture, particularly Acts. This belief, however, is not confined to these churches. A two-stage theory of Christian initiation--baptism and confirmation--was popularized by Dom Gregory Dix in the Anglican and Episcopal Churches in the early twentieth century. This theory was subsequently shown by Professor Geoffrey Lampe to have no Biblical basis. In his book Baptism the late Michael Green shows that belief in a second work of grace is not essential to the belief in the continuation of the sign gifts in our time. Green argued that it more accurate to speak of the "release" of the Holy Spirit than the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church would assimilate the charismatic movement by associating Spirit baptism with confirmation, which it teaches is a sacrament.