Al, I know you're in the middle of a board meeting, but CJ & I are still waiting to hear from you and Lig on a brief statement on the gospel, and particular threats to it today.

I'm sorry to be missing the time with you in Louisville, but I'm here at Southwestern for a couple of days.  Last night I had a good time with 30 or 40 students in Jason Duesing's class, talking about regenerate church membership, and the kind of understanding of conversion and practice of evangelism that entails.  Today I have the privilege of meals with a few friends (Malcolm Yarnell, Paige Patterson, Jason Lee), speaking in Malcolm's class, preaching in chapel and giving an informational meeting at 3pm about 9Marks.  Pray for me in this.  All the folks here have been extremely hospitable.

On to pleasant post-modernism for a moment--how's this for a practical description of the contemporary mood?

We must be largely charitable,
and leave this brother to his own opinion;
he sees truth from a different standpoint,
and has a rather different way of putting it,
but his opinions are as good as our own,
and we must not say that he is in error.

I think it's a pretty good on-the-ground look at the apparent humility being cultivated today in the name of our lack of omniscience.  This is a quotation from C H Spurgeon as he typified opponents he was facing in 1873! He called this "the fashionable way of trifling with divine truth, and making things pleasant all round.  Thus the gospel is debased and another gospel propagated."  (Met Tab Oct. 19, 1873).  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Semper eadem.

Let's pray that we would most want to please not those "all round", but God, and that we would do so by clear presentations of His gospel.