July 25, 2008

Weekly Round-Up: Benny Hinn, John MacArthur, Individualism vs. Communitarianism, and D'Souza vs. Hitchens

Here's this week's round-up:

1) Marthinus van Vuuren Rapport, "God bless your credit card" on News 24 (South Africa). Would you like to know Benny Hinn's latest antics in Africa? This report begins with: "God's blessing would last only two minutes and it would create 500 churchgoing millionaires or even billionaires - all they had to do was use their credit cards to pay $1 000 in offerings to televangelist Benny Hinn."

2) John MacArthur, "Fully Man and Fully God" in Pulpit Magazine. Here is a great introduction to the biblical truth that Jesus Christ is both fully man and fully God. False teachers and cults often deny at least one of these facts, but God's revelation shows us otherwise. What a glorious Savior!

3) Jonathan Leeman, "Individualism's Not the Problem--Community's Not the Solution" (in PDF format) in Modern Reformation (July/August 2008). Many of today's missionaries and church leaders fall into the trap of overcompensating for Western individualism by focusing on community. Leeman provides a much needed corrective to this contemporary shift.

4) Dinesh D'Souza, "An Absentee God?" on the Townhall web site. D'Souza takes atheist Christopher Hitchens to the woodshed, showing how simplistic and problematic his arguments can be. I may be a young earth creationist and would defend Christianity somewhat differently, but I still found D'Souza's piece informative.