Where We Stand
Everyone who recommends Christian teaching is recommending from somewhere. Pretending otherwise does the reader no favors. So here is the position the contributors here work from, stated plainly enough that you can read every recommendation with it in view.
The common ground
Contributors hold the historic Christian faith as summarized in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds:
- God — one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- Scripture — the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God.
- Jesus — fully God and fully human, crucified, risen, and reigning.
- Salvation — by grace, through faith, in Christ alone.
- The Church — one holy catholic and apostolic church of all believers.
Where contributors stand
Contributors stand within Protestant Christianity, and the site does not narrow further than that on purpose.
More than one person recommends and writes here, and contributors differ among themselves — on baptism, church government, the shape of the end times, predestination and human freedom, the continuation of spiritual gifts, the days of Genesis 1. Those differences are real, and this site does not settle them by house rule. What contributors hold in common is the Protestant consensus:
- Scripture is the final authority in matters of faith and practice — above tradition, councils, and any teaching office.
- Justification is by grace, through faith, on account of Christ — not achieved, supplemented, or maintained by our works.
- Every believer has direct access to God through Christ, without a human mediator standing in between.
Beyond that, every recommendation and every piece written here reflects the person who signed it. The name is not a disclaimer, but it is a reminder: you are reading a person’s judgment, not a denomination’s.
What a recommendation means
A recommendation is a judgment about one sermon, song, book, essay, or Bible study: that it is worth your time, for the reasons its notes give. It is not an endorsement of everything its speaker, author, church, or label believes or does, and it does not mean every contributor would say every line of it the same way.
What belongs here is teaching that stands on the common ground above. Within those bounds, recommendations come from across the Protestant traditions, including ones the recommender doesn’t belong to. Where a recommended work takes a side on a question Christians disagree about, its notes say so, so you know what you are walking into.
If something comes to light about a recommended speaker or author that bears on their teaching, the recommendation is reviewed, and what was decided is noted on the entry rather than quietly changed.
Readers’ ratings — Hallelujah, Amen, and Not for me — measure how worthwhile readers found something. They are not a vote on whether it is true.
Where Christians genuinely disagree
A good deal of what Christians argue about falls inside the bounds of orthodoxy rather than outside it. On those questions, writing here will state a view and argue for it, but will represent the alternatives as their own best advocates would recognize them. Where an essay or a note takes a contested position, it says so and points to the serious cases against it.
A piece that leaves you unable to state the opposing view fairly has failed, whatever else it accomplished.
Scripture citations
Contributors quote from whichever translation they prefer and name it with the reference, as in Job 23:10 (NIV). Quotations in the earliest pieces that don’t name a translation are from the English Standard Version:
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Quotations marked NIV:
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Sources
Where writing here leans on the creeds, confessions, church fathers, or historical scholarship, it cites them. Most of that material is public domain and linked directly, so you can check the argument rather than take it on trust.