How can our churches encourage honesty about sin and temptation without excusing it?
Life together in the body of Christ requires a healthy degree of openness and honesty about sin and temptation. “Confess your sins to one another,” the apostle James writes (5:16). But how do we be vulnerable about our sin without simply excusing it?
That’s the question Rosaria Butterfield (author of Openness Unhindered), Sam Allberry (author of Is God Anti-Gay? and Why Bother with Church?), and Jackie Hill Perry (hip-hop and spoken word artist) tackle in this new nine-minute roundtable. Butterfield encourages churches to develop a robust grasp of the doctrine of sin and to cultivate the kind of community where openness about personal struggle naturally unfolds through “the rhythms of life.” Allberry presses us to consider the need not only to confess, but also to repent to one another. Perry reflects on how both the fear and the love of God lead her into confession and repentance with joy.
Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?
In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
