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Thanks to Mark Galli and his October cover story ["In the Beginning, Grace"] for so exquisitely diagnosing the dysfunctional horizontal focus plaguing the North American church. His summons back to the word of the Cross—God's ever-new word of judgment and grace—was good medicine for evangelical activism run amok.

In my Lutheran tradition, preaching is defined precisely (some would say narrowly) by this two-edged sword of law and gospel; discussion about what to do in response is better had over coffee. Whether such a vertically disciplined understanding of the pulpit actually empowers us to behave more like Christians during the week, God knows. But hearing the message of grace afresh each week, and receiving it anew each morning, can make one more humble and good-humored. And that's a start.

Mark D. Williamson
Pastor, St. Paul Lutheran Church
Wheaton, Illinois

While finding many notable challenges in Mark Galli's article, I have two significant concerns.

Galli misrepresents my perspective by taking a quote from my book [The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity] and my interview out of context. While I believe that diversity is an important part of the growth of the church in the United States, my perspective is that God is bringing that diversity and that the church needs to live into the work of God. A more careful reading of the book would lead to that conclusion.

In addition, by not mentioning my name or my book, the article does not allow the reader to find this out for himself.

Soong-Chan Rah
Professor, North Park Theological Seminary
Chicago, Illinois

Following C.S. Lewis (see The Abolition of Man), not naming a title and author is a way to offer critique without suggesting it is personal. It apparently created offense anyway, and I'm sorry for that. Despite my concerns, Professor Rah's book is worth a close read for the bracing word it offers.
—Mark Galli

My problem with CT's analysis was that it left the impression that Christianity is reducible to the Good News. The Lutheran tradition has rightly observed that the gospel is meaningless apart from the law. In the life of the nominal believer, this misunderstanding is catastrophic. To speak of grace to a person who has not been convicted by the law is to affirm that person's pet sins and to turn an immature believer into an unrepentant libertine. When last I checked, antinomianism was still a heresy.

Carey Vinzant
St. Louis, Missouri

My thanks for reminding us that evangelicalism's roots must always be traced to Golgotha and to our need to stand under God's judgment and grace. Yesterday in my beginning homiletics class at Dallas Seminary, I found myself repeatedly asking my students, "What are you preaching that a good Jewish rabbi couldn't preach?" Your reminder of the centrality of Christ's grace powerfully encouraged me.

David B. Wyrtzen
Professor, Dallas Theological Seminary
Dallas, Texas

Cary McMullen did a magnificent job reporting on the Assemblies of God in the October issue ["Holding Their Tongues"], especially with the bar graphs. The statistics on speaking in tongues show that even denominations that insist it is the initial physical evidence of Holy Spirit baptism have many members who haven't received it.

What is unclear to me is why many Pentecostals insist on this doctrine. Granted, tongues is one of the Holy Spirit's gifts; it was often exhibited when people in the New Testament received the Spirit, and it continues to happen today. But Scripture says it is one of the gifts, and even raises the question, "Do all speak in tongues?" (1 Cor. 12:30).

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December 2009, Vol. 53, No. 12