LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)–A new radio show in Louisville, Ky., features a timeless message.
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently began hosting “Truth on the Line,” a weekly 30-minute show devoted to the contemporary culture and its interaction with the gospel message. The show can be heard Wednesdays at 10 a.m. (EST) on Louisville’s WLSY-AM (94.7), as well as throughout the week on the station’s website.
Each Wednesday, Mohler comments on current events and conducts interviews with various guests. Guests during the show’s first month included Southern Baptist Convention President James Merritt and University of California-Berkeley professor Phillip E. Johnson.
One of the show’s goals, Mohler said, is to equip Christians with the tools needed to defend their faith.
“We want to help Christians to think like Christians, and we want to help arm this generation of Christians to be able to think in ways that are distinctively Christian,” he said during the inaugural show June 6. “… We will look at how the gospel intersects with contemporary culture. These days Christians must be quick-witted and careful thinkers. Otherwise, we’re going to be out-thought by the world. That is one of the real dangers – that Christians will simply be intellectually lame while the world is intellectually strong.”
The basis for such a show, Mohler said, is found in the New Testament.
“Peter wrote to the church in the first century, and he told them that they must prepare their minds for action,” he said. “That’s what we really need to do. Too many Christians are simply intellectually asleep at the wheel and unable to come up with a good argument when truth is on the line. We want to help arm the church. Hopefully this will be something that Christians will really grow to enjoy.”
Mohler pointed out that everyone takes a stand for something, whether that be a sports team, a political issue or a side in a family argument.
“The question is what kind of stand are you going to take, and are you going to take a stand in the right place, at the right time for the right reasons?” he asked. “The Bible says that we are to be always ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. That is the Christian’s responsibility – to be always ready with an answer.”
As the culture has declined, Mohler said, the need for courageous Christians has risen.
“In our generation, we are called to address issues that the founders of the SBC could not have imagined,” he said. “The SBC takes a position on homosexuality. That’s a fairly new thing, because in 1845, no denomination in America had a position on homosexuality. … It would have been considered absolutely unnecessary. But that is one of the frontline issues in America in the 21st century, and a denomination that does not speak clearly and biblically on that issue is simply absent without leave.”
Mohler said that the basis for answers is the Word of God.
“The Bible is going to be the touchtone of everything we will see,” he said. “It will be the authority under which we will try to come to terms with these issues — ancient and contemporary.”
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: TRUTH ON THE LINE.
