Happy Birthday, John Calvin!

Today we celebrate the 500th birthday of one of the greatest Christian Reformers God was pleased to bless Christendom. John Calvin, who like Martin Luther started as a lawyer turned theologian, wrote in his Commentary on the Book of Psalms: “God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life.” From that point on he would dedicate his life to building up the Church of Christ by proclaiming the Word of God through preaching and the pen.

Calvin lived through persecution from the Roman Catholic Church and vicious antagony from Libertines. Famously, he stood against a band of Libertines who were living in public sin and refused to allow them to partake in the Lord’s Supper even if they threatened to cut him down.

To read more of this article, please go to PerseveroBlog.com.

Reformation 500 Pictures on PerseveroBlog

On Thursday evening at Vision Forum's Reformation 500 event, a group of several families collected around the piano of the Boston Plaza Hotel to sing numerous old hymns in four-part harmony, and the acoustics in the hotel engulfed the lobby and Mezzanine. How joyous it was to see these families, many of them new friends at this event, exude with such spontaneous and unifying gladness in God.

See many additional images from the Reformation 500 at PerseveroBlog.com.

Making Your Calling & Election Sure

What if you knew you had been living a lie before everyone you knew for years? Would you have the courage to confess your falsehood and change?

A few weeks ago I had the delight of attending the baptism of Joey Valenti in San Antonio. I mention this special event here on Persevero! because of the wonderful example this young man Joey played to young men everywhere in the testimony he presented at his baptism. Like so many boys who have grown up in Christian homes, Joey testified to all that he had for many years professed to be a Christian. But as he entered into his teens and examined himself by the standard of God’s Word, he realized that his actions were not consistent with the character of a saint. In particular, he realized that he had developed habits in his life that he knew were disobedient to the Holy Word of God.

Joey heard the many teachings in Scripture that emphasize the character of a Christian—how a person’s life should be altered by the indwelling of God’s Spirit. As Romans 8:5-7 says: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” In examining himself, Joey realized that he was carnally minded and not demonstrating the thought-patterns of a spiritually minded Christian.

See the rest of this post on PerseveroBlog.

Winston Churchill’s Choice Words for Gay Pride Month

In 1919, after Lenin had led the Soviets to slaughter the entire Russian royal family and then set up the Cheka (his own version of the Gestapo) to hunt down all opponents of Marxism, Winston Churchill like many westerners became aghast to hear the news. He told the cabinet that Lenin and Trotsky should be captured and hanged, “as the object upon whom justice will be executed, however long it takes, and to make them feel that their punishment will become an important object of British policy.”[1] He told the Dundee electors that the Bolsheviks were reducing Russia “to an animal form of barbarism,” maintaining themselves by “bloody and wholesale butcheries and murders carried out to large extent by Chinese executions and armored cars. . . . Civilization is being completely extinguished[.]”

But perhaps Churchill’s most telling words were communicated to Lloyd George. Churchill wrote: “You might as well legalize sodomy as recognize the Bolsheviks.”[2]

Say what? Yes, you read that correctly. Winston Churchill, speaking for all of western society in his day, not only summarized the disdain people should feel toward the evils of Lenin’s Communism but also expressed how utterly unthinkable his generation considered legalized sodomy. Let alone celebrating it. He sensed sodomy was such an unquestionable evil that he felt confident in comparing it to something else he knew to just as evil so as to effectively convey his moral outrage.

Where is the moral outrage of this generation? Today, in contrast we not only have legalized sodomy, but we celebrate sodomy along with communism publicly, as our new civil leaders encourage us. In this day of self-indulgence and ”tolerance,” we’re running short on the morally unthinkable.

See the rest of this article at PerseveroBlog.

The U.S. Department of Education Shows Homeschooling Has Become a Major Force

PerseveroBlog: In an article released late yesterday, Al Mohler addressed the data released from the U.S. Department of Education on homeschooling in America. Part of that article appears below.

When parents were asked why they chose to homeschool their children, 36 percent cited a desire to provide children specifically religious or moral instruction. After that, 21 percent of parents pointed to concerns about the environment of schools, 17 percent cited dissatisfaction with educational quality in the schools, and 14 percent cited "other reasons." Among those "other reasons" was a concern for more family time together.

Higher numbers of parents with college educations and greater family incomes are now homeschooling. This trend points to the fact that homeschooling is increasingly the option of first choice for many parents. This pattern is also revealed in increasing numbers of college students, primarily young women, who indicate that they desire a college education so that they will be better equipped in years ahead to be homeschooling parents.

One area of concern is also revealed in the study. In 1999, 49 percent of homeschooled children were boys and 51 percent were girls. Now, boys account for only 42 percent of homeschooled students. This represents a significant shift that raises a host of questions. Why the drop in the percentage of boys?

To read the entire article, please click here.

Which “Rule of Law” Would Supreme-Court Nominee Sotomayor Follow?

As Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor stood next to President Obama on Tuesday, she declared, "I firmly believe in the rule of law."

Brava, Judge Sotomayor! But how often have we observed a jurist who professed to not to believe in the rule of law? So far that profession seems to be untouchable. The question is not: "Does she believe in the rule of law?" The question is: "What is the rule of law? And how does one determine that rule of law?"

See the rest of this post at PerseveroBlog.

Resurrecting Edited Video into a Presentation All Its Own

When it comes to making videos, no matter how small the project may seem, things always end up getting chopped off in the editing room. This was the case even with a short segment the Vision Forum Video Department recently made for the Reformation 500 Celebration. That video gave us the opportunity to work again with a delightful and talented man—a man of a thousand voices. . . . Read more at PerseveroBlog.