Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

Michael Horton explains moralistic therapeutic deism and how it shows up in our churches and literature.

In this interview series, Mars Hill PR Director Nick Bogardus interviews Dr. Michael Horton. For more information and resources from Dr. Horton, check out White Horse Inn.

Exchange Conference

June 17-18, San Diego: A conference about identifying the Truth and the Lie of life. Learn more.

How should Christians relate to Muslims? Why should we learn about Islam? Sojourn Church in Louisville has a 5-minute interview with Pastor Daniel Montgomery about these issues on their Inside Sojourn podcast. You can also stream the interview directly.

Sojourn is also hosting a forum this week called “Developing a Christian Response to the Challenge of Islam,” taught by Dr. Albert Mohler of Southern Seminary. [Updated with link to the audio from Dr. Mohler's lecture]

Mars Hill Global

Serving the church and spreading the gospel. Help support this effort by giving to the Global Fund. More info at MarsHillGlobal.com.

Author and apologist Dr. Ravi Zacharias spoke at The Henry Center in October 2009 on the topic of postmodernism and the pertinent lessons we can learn from two kings of ancient Israel.

See video from Dr. Zacharias’ presentation:

• Toward an Evangelical Understanding of Postmodernism and Mission
• Audience Q&A
• Interview
• Lessons from History: The Tale of the Story of Two Men

For additional content, visit Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) and download the thought-provoking daily and weekly podcasts Let My People Think and Just Thinking.

Trial Study Guide

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's Trial sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

Click through to the Resurgence if you can’t see the video.

Missional cultural engagement is a challenge. How far does one go to engage culture? According to missiologist Ed Stetzer, that is the nature of contextualization. In his recent post Ancestor Worship and Taiwanese Christians, Stetzer gives some helpful guidelines on contextualization as well as this short video of a Taiwanese believer explaining the difficulty of contextualization in his culture of ancestor worship.

Rain City Hymnal

The first offering from Re:Sound is the Rain City Hymnal. Listen online and get the record from the Re:Sound website. Find out more.

Why did Martin Luther nail his famous 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door on October 31, 1517?

He was confronting two religious observances that promoted false saintliness and exploited people’s fear of judgment and purgatory. There’s a curious connection between Halloween and Reformation Day, and it’s more than just proximity on the calendar.

Halloween

Halloween (October 31) is celebrated by millions each year with costumes and candy. Halloween's deepest roots are decidedly pagan, despite its Christianized name. Its origin is Celtic and has to do with summer sacrifices to appease Samhain, the lord of death, and evil spirits. Those doing the pagan rituals believed that Samhain sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking like evil spirits themselves.

Christians tried to confront these pagan rites by offering a Christian alternative (All Hallows’ Day) that celebrated the lives of faithful Christian saints on November 1. In medieval England the festival was known as All Hallows, hence the name Halloween (All Hallows' eve) for the preceding evening.

All Saints' Day

All Hallows' Day or All Saints' Day (November 1) was first celebrated on May 13, 609, when Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to the Virgin Mary. The date was later changed to November 1 by Pope Gregory III, who dedicated a chapel in honor of all saints in the Vatican Basilica. In 837, Pope Gregory IV (827-844) ordered its church-wide observance. Its origin lies earlier in the common commemorations of Christian martyrs. Over time these celebrations came to include not only the martyrs, but all saints. During the Reformation the Protestant churches came to understand “saints” in its New Testament usage as including all believers and reinterpreted the feast of All Saints as a celebration of the unity of the entire Church.

All Souls' Day

All Souls' Day or the Day of the Dead is normally celebrated, primarily by Roman Catholics, on November 2. This is a day dedicated to prayer and almsgiving in memory of ancestors who have died. People pray for the souls of the dead, in an effort to hasten their transition from purgatory to heaven by being purged and cleansed from their sins.

Reformation Day

Reformation Day (October 31) commemorates Luther's posting of his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. This act triggered the Reformation, as they were immediately translated and distributed across Germany in a matter of weeks. The Protestant Reformation was the rediscovery of the doctrine of justification—salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone—and the protest against the corruption within the Roman Catholic Church.

The century before the Reformation was marked by widespread dismay with the venality of the leaders in the Roman Catholic Church and with its false doctrines, biblical illiteracy, superstition, and corruption. Monks, priests, bishops, and popes in Rome taught unbiblical doctrines like the selling of indulgences, the treasury of merit, purgatory, and salvation through good works.

Treasury of Merit

Spiritually earnest people were told to justify themselves by charitable works, pilgrimages, and all kinds of religious performances and devotions. They were encouraged to acquire this “merit,” which was at the disposal of the church, by purchasing certificates of indulgence. This left them wondering if they had done or paid enough to appease God's righteous anger and escape his judgment.

This was the context that prompted Luther’s desire to refocus the church on salvation by grace through faith on account of Christ by imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. To those spiritually oppressed by indulgences and not given assurance of God’s grace, Luther proclaimed free grace to God’s true saints:

God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but those who are sick, gives sight to none but the blind, and life to none but the dead. He does not give saintliness to any but sinners, nor wisdom to any but fools. In short: He has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace. Therefore no arrogant saint, or just or wise man can be material for God, neither can he do the work of God, but he remains confined within his own work and makes of himself a fictitious, ostensible, false, and deceitful saint, that is, a hypocrite (Luther W.A. 1.183ff).

Instead of the treasury of merit that was for sale, Luther protested, “The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God” (Thesis 62).

In celebration of Reformation Day, you should seriously read all 95 Theses—they're really good.

Vintage Church

In this book, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears discuss the essentials of what it means to be a biblical church. Find out more.