The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas F. Booher Dear Evangelicalism,  I am not sure if you are aware, but people are having a harder and harder time defining you. I suppose I am an evangelical, insofar as I believe that we need to proclaim the gospel to everyone. The first sentence in Wikipedia defines you (us?) as "a world-wide Protestant movement maintaining that the essence of the gospel consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ's atonement." That definition is a large umbrella housing many different denominations, and gospels. Roman Catholics believe that salvation is by faith in Christ's atonement. A Mormon like Glenn Beck can call himself an evangelical with this definition. Yet Catholics and Mormons both believe that good works are needed for salvation in addition to faith in Christ. So evangelicalism, you are not defined by the true gospel. Absent is the truth that we are saved by faith alone through Christ's atoning work in life, death, and resurrecti...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher Luther and the Epistle of Straw – Part 1 The rediscovery of justification by faith in Christ alone (without works) was so paramount in Luther’s experience that he began to look at the whole Bible from that single perspective. There was an advantage to that. The principle of justification by faith alone in Christ alone opened up the New Testament to reveal many things that were hidden before. In the very moment of his ‘Tower Experience’, Luther tells us how this insight into God’s justification of the sinner instantly affected his understanding of the rest of scripture. Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings, e.g., the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. ...

In 1997, a group of Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland drafted a study document, outlining ways to deal with the sexual child abuse crisis which was becoming endemic in the Church. Under the new rules these bishops maintained that there would be mandatory reporting of offending priests and instant removal of the positions of those behind the abuse.  The Vatican shut these bishops' reforms down .  The letter the Vatican sent in response (linked to in orange) read, " In particular, the situation of 'mandatory reporting' gives rise to serious reservations  of... a canonical nature."[1] To make it more clear, the letter raised "particular" concern about mandatory reporting because of issues with canon law. WHAT IS CANON LAW? According to  The Catholic Encyclopedia , canon law is "the body of laws made or adopted by [the Roman Catholic Church] for the government of... its members."[2] Also, "The ultimate source of canon law is God...