Welcome to my new website! This website will have two functions going forward. First, it will serve as an online home for my writing. Second, it will serve as an archive for the best articles published at InFocus over the years. InFocus began in 2005 as the official blog of
Question: "How do you reconcile the angry, wrathful God of the Old Testament to the loving, good God of the New Testament?" It's a question that I've wrestled with and am often asked about so I've decided to compile a small list of resources to address it. These are sermons
A number of months ago, David Strain wrote an open letter to "Thomas," a fictional seminary student struggling with same-sex attraction. I appreciated the tone of his letter. It was a welcome contrast to Phil Johnson's handling of the topic to which I offered a somewhat salty—but no less intellectually
Let's face it. Conservative Christians tend to be wary of the social sciences such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I have many friends in church leadership who view the soft sciences with moderated suspicion at least. Others reject them overtly. And this feels reasonable because, it is argued, the social
Moments ago I saw the news of an American megachurch pastor, Andrew Stoecklein, who took his own life after a battle with depression and anxiety. Almost immediately the commentary on facebook began. As a pastor who battles mental health struggles, I feel compelled to insert a few thoughts into the
Phil Johnson recently began stirring the pot on the non-neutrality of same-sex attraction (SSA). You can read it here and here. It's the sort of cantankerous monologue you'd expect from a hard-line fundamentalist like Phil. But he's finally provoked me enough to get me writing. So that's something. First, let's
An old friend recently asked my thoughts on the local church and it occurred to me that I'm odd. If anyone should hate the local church, it's me. I grew up in an extreme wing of Christian Fundamentalism. My childhood pastor—my Dad—is currently in prison. My world is full of
Independent Baptist (IB) Kevin Harris recently came under public scrutiny in Australia for his dangerous views on rape and child abuse. The responses from IB leaders have varied from enthusiastically rallying around him to reticent disapproval. One of the key arguments that I've heard many times over the last two
At 9.25pm on Thursday evening, Charlie Haddad, pastor of Grace Bible Baptist Church (an IB church) put a statement "by Kevin Harris" up on his facebook wall. You can read Kevin's statement here. It's odd to me that the statement has been released in this way. I would have expected
I've just been through a very intense 48 hours since the airing of the 60 Minutes report on my family. The last thing I want to do right now is sit down and analyse the response to this programme, but it needs to be done. Links First, let me give
