“Some churches try so hard to be user-friendly and relational that the Bible is implicitly ignored or depreciated. In one evangelical church that I recently attended, the morning’s skit came in three secenes that devoured about fifteen minutes. The closing lines on true love and friendship emerged from a scene in which one woman was giving comfort and love to another who had just had a miscarriage. The latter thanked her for not quoting verses like Romans 8:28 at her, but just loving her. Now I realize that quoting verses “at” someone can be done in an insensitive and triumphalistic fashion. Yet the fact remains that no Christian who passes through deep waters draws much comfort from God until he or she realizes that God really is in control, God really does love his own people, God really is wise and good, God really can use pain in this fallen world in remarkable ways.77 To turn people away from such God-centered truths to appeal to purely human comfort I might have expected from a liberal church; it is crushingly disappointing in a church that nominally retains its evangelical statement of faith.”
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Donald Arthur Carson is a Canadian-born evangelical theologian and professor of New Testament.
Carson served as pastor of Richmond Baptist Church in Richmond, British Columbia from 1970 to 1972. Following his doctoral studies, he served for three years at Northwest Baptist Theological College (Vancouver) and in 1976 was the founding dean of the seminary. In 1978, Carson joined the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he is currently serving as research professor.
Carson has written or edited 57 books, many of which have been translated into Chinese.