Monthly Archives: April 2019

//April
21 April

He is risen – and other holiday issues

By |2019-04-21T22:43:05-06:00April 21st, 2019|Uncategorized|90 Comments

"He is risen." This often repeated phrase is the Christian community's traditional greeting on what people call "Easter." Stanton typically distances itself from any holiday observances, even secular ones like Mother's Day. In doing this, they take a page out of the doctrines of other sects like Jehovah's Witnesses. I unfortunately carried these feelings long into adulthood, thinking (because it was what I had been told) that people who celebrate Easter just care about the Easter bunny. But it's simply not true. Yes, there are some secularized people who are "Christians" in name only, and there will always be those. But that is not the end of the story. So is it really against scripture to observe this or any other holiday in our American [...]

6 April

Welcome to the new site!

By |2019-04-11T07:41:03-06:00April 6th, 2019|Uncategorized|53 Comments

Some housekeeping notes: The domain is now permanently changed to StantonBlog.com. It should redirect automatically, so just set your bookmarks accordingly. Commenting will be slightly different, so please feel free to test and post your feedback on the "Need Help?" tab. You may sign up for an account to make your posting easier, or you may comment without creating an account. It's up to you. I strongly suggest choosing a "pen name" if you prefer to post anonymously in order to facilitate more meaningful conversations. They can be difficult to follow when there are dozens of people named "Anonymous." :-) "Popular Posts" and individual page counts for articles will be reset to zero. I'm looking into some options for transcribing those counts directly into the new database, [...]

4 April

Rewinding Christianity (almost) to the beginning

By |2019-04-11T05:42:18-06:00April 4th, 2019|Uncategorized|25 Comments

Sometimes I think those of us who say we want to restore the "ancient order" of the New Testament church don’t really want to bring the church back to its most primitive state. It is much more comfortable for us to bring the church back to the almost-ancient order of things–perhaps the end of the 1st century–rather than the day of Pentecost. Yes, we give lip service to wanting to rewind the clock on church history a bit. Hence the catch-phrase "Restoration Movement" (although I prefer the name Stone-Campbell Movement, for reasons I'll write about later). But few would be comfortable going all the way back to the beginning. What do I mean by that? Well, consider that by the end of the first century, [...]

3 April

Hide it under a bushel, YES!

By |2019-08-16T09:26:00-06:00April 3rd, 2019|Uncategorized|13 Comments

Some of you may remember this great little song in kids' class and babysitting: This little light of mine Ain't gonna let it shine This little light of mine Ain't gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, not one time Hide it under a bushel, YES! Ain't gonna let it shine Hide it under a bushel, YES! Ain't gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, not one time Let's let Satan SNUFF it out! Ain't gonna let it shine Let's let Satan SNUFF it out! Ain't gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, not one time Knock all over the neighborhood.... You get the idea. I had a lighthearted conversation with some people recently about recording [...]