Author: Texas Gospel

Don’t mistake winning an argument for winning a soul

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DAVID INGRAM

If you’ve spent much time defending the Christian faith online or in person, you’ve probably noticed a familiar pattern. It has become so common that it’s almost predictable.

Someone confidently declares, “There is no God.”

When you ask them to support that claim, the response is often, “The burden of proof is on you because you’re the one who believes God exists.”

At first, that may sound reasonable. But think carefully about what has happened.

The statement, “God exists,” is a claim. The statement, “God does not exist,” is also a claim. Both are assertions about reality. The only position that avoids making a claim is, “I don’t know.”

A common mistake in reasoning is to assume that only one side has a burden of proof. This is known as shifting the burden of proof. It occurs when someone makes an assertion but insists that only the other person is responsible for providing evidence. If a person claims there is no God, they have made a claim just as surely as the person who says there is a God. Neither side should be exempt from defending what they affirm.

As Christians, we should never be embarrassed to acknowledge that we are saved by faith given as a gift from God so that no one may boast. To be clear: I believe the Bible tells us that our faith is not something we manufacture on our own or that stems from our own ability to understand.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
— Ephesians 2:8-9

We do not hide our faith because it is God’s gift, not our achievement.

What should concern us is when someone confidently declares there is no God while insisting they owe no explanation for that conclusion. That is not skepticism. It is simply another belief being asserted without defense.

Yet even this is not the heart of the matter.

Christians can become so absorbed in debating logical fallacies that we forget why the conversation matters in the first place. We begin treating apologetics as though our mission is to outthink the unbeliever.

It isn’t.

The deepest reason people reject Christ is rarely intellectual. Scripture says the problem is spiritual.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” (Psalm 14:1)

Notice that Scripture does not say the fool has examined all the evidence and reached an unavoidable conclusion. The issue begins in the heart.

Paul explains that humanity already has sufficient knowledge of God through His creation, yet suppresses that truth.

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them… So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.”
— Romans 1:19-21

The Bible teaches that unbelief is not caused by a lack of information. It is a suppression of truth. Sin affects not only what we desire but also how we think.

This does not mean every objection to Christianity is dishonest. People often have sincere questions that deserve thoughtful answers. We should always be prepared to give a reason for the hope within us, doing so “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

But we should never imagine that the right argument alone can produce saving faith.

Paul wrote,

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:18

And again,

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him… because they are spiritually discerned.”
— 1 Corinthians 2:14

No one is argued into the Kingdom apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.

That should change the way we engage unbelievers.

Yes, expose faulty reasoning when it appears. Correct logical fallacies when necessary. Defend the truth faithfully. But do not mistake exposing an error in logic for addressing the real issue. A person can lose every argument and still reject Christ. Another can ask difficult questions and, by God’s grace, come to faith.

Our confidence should never rest in our ability to corner someone intellectually. Scripture warns us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

Don’t work so hard to open the door of human reason that you neglect the door only the Holy Spirit can open.

Winning an argument is not the mission.

Leading people to the Savior is.

A song for the darkest night: how despair becomes prayer

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WILLIAM KILLIAN

There is a particular kind of suffering that does not knock before it enters. It simply arrives, and suddenly the warmth you had known is gone. The church has not always been kind to such moments. There is a strain of Christian thinking, well-intentioned but deeply harmful, that treats joy as a spiritual obligation and sorrow as a symptom of weak faith. And so suffering people learn to perform a wellness they do not possess, pressing a smile over a wound that quietly festers in the dark. But the scriptures will not allow this. Tucked within the Psalms, that great songbook of God’s people, is a psalm so extraordinarily dark that it ends on the word darkness and simply stops. God put it there. He preserved it through the centuries and placed it in the worship book of his people, declaring something profound: there is no emotional territory so bleak that he refuses to meet us there.

To lament is not to despair without direction. It is to take your pain and aim it at God, to cry out rather than shut down, to bring the full weight of your suffering into the presence of the One who made you and has not, despite every feeling to the contrary, abandoned you. The psalmist in Psalm 88 is drowning, and he says so plainly. He feels buried, forsaken, cut off from companions and from light. And yet he is talking to God. His theology has not resolved his suffering. His faith has not produced relief. But his despair has become a prayer, and that prayer is enough. Silence, for the suffering soul, is a kind of death. But speech, even broken and anguished speech aimed at heaven, is a refusal to let go.

And here is the Word that changes everything: there was One who descended into that darkness fully and completely, not because of his own sin but because of ours. When Jesus cried out from the cross, asking why God had forsaken him, he was experiencing, in the most literal and devastating sense, everything this psalm describes. He went all the way to the bottom, and then he rose. Because he has been there, no suffering Christian descends to a place where Christ has not already walked.

When you are in a season of Psalm 88, if you have prayed and heard only silence, you still have one thing: a voice. Use it. Cry out. Grief given to God is never wasted, and the darkest songs, faithfully sung, are still songs of praise.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

The Kingsmen blend tradition and new songs on anniversary album

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TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

For seven decades, the Kingsmen have built a reputation by honoring Southern Gospel traditions while continuing to evolve. Their latest release, Still Jesus, reflects that balance, looking back at the group’s history while introducing new music that points toward its future.

The Horizon Records album, subtitled A Seventieth Anniversary Celebration, arrives as both a milestone and a statement of purpose. Rather than simply revisiting familiar material, the collection blends restored classics, previously unrecorded songs from the group’s archives, and brand-new recordings from some of gospel music’s most respected songwriters.

“For me,” says Kingsmen vocalist Alan Kendall, “this album is both a culmination and a beginning for the Kingsmen.”

That perspective shaped every decision behind the project. Kendall says the group wanted to celebrate its legacy without becoming confined by it.

“We have always been diligent to honor our Kingsmen roots,” he explains. “But those exact same roots also tell us that the Kingsmen have always been a forward-thinking group.”

That philosophy led the quartet to revisit classic arrangements while preserving the character longtime listeners have come to expect. The album also includes two older songs that had never been recorded by the Kingsmen, including one written by Squire Parsons in 1989, alongside five newly written selections from songwriters whose work has helped define the group’s modern catalog.

“Ronny Hinson, Kenna Turner West, Joseph Habedank, Lee Black, Rachel McCutcheon, and more, all sent us some of their finest material to date,” Kendall says.

The result is an album that moves comfortably between generations. Familiar harmonies anchor classics such as “I’ll Live Again,” while songs like “I Forgive Your Sin” and “When Sunday Morning Dawned” feature sweeping orchestration. Elsewhere, country influences shape tracks including “That Very Moment” and “I Stand Upon The Rock of Ages,” giving the collection a broader musical palette without losing its identity.

The closing track serves as the album’s emotional centerpiece. Nineteen former Kingsmen members reunite as an alumni choir to perform “Is That the Old Ship of Zion,” one of the group’s signature songs.

“I’ll advise our fans to listen to this album all the way through,” Kendall says. “It is quite a ride.”

For drummer Brandon Reese, whose father, Ray Dean Reese, helped establish the Kingsmen’s enduring legacy, the anniversary project carries both personal and spiritual significance. As the group’s manager and leader, he sees Still Jesus as more than a celebration of longevity.

“We tried to incorporate something that just about anybody would enjoy,” Reese says, pointing to the mix of new songs, re-recorded favorites, and appearances by more than 15 Kingsmen members spanning seven decades.

His hope, however, extends beyond the music itself.

“Most importantly,” Reese says, “it is my prayer that you hear something in this album that helps you in your every day walk, because no matter the issue, the answer is Still Jesus. And with the Kingsmen, even after 70 years, the answer will always be Still Jesus.”

The purifying fire of the trial you cannot handle

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JEFF TURNER

There is a moment in certain trials when you come to the end of what you can manage. You have brought everything you have, every resource, every strategy, every reserve of strength and patience and faith, and none of it is sufficient. You cannot handle what you are in the middle of. And it is precisely at that moment, when the self-sufficiency runs out, that something God has been waiting for becomes possible.

Because what happens when you face something you cannot handle? You go to your knees. And on your knees, something shifts. The heart that was perhaps moving through its days with a kind of spiritual self-confidence, checking its own boxes and keeping its own accounts, is now searching itself before God, asking hard questions, repenting of what the ordinary days allowed to accumulate, clearing the ground so that the voice of God can be heard without obstruction. This is the purifying process, and it is not incidental to the trial. It is the point of it. The fire does not destroy the believer. It refines them. This is why the psalmist, looking back across his own suffering with the clarity that only distance provides, arrived at what sounds like a startling conclusion: it was good for him. Not easy. Not painless. Good. The God who loves you enough to allow the fire is the same God who is standing in it with you, and he will not remove you until the work is done.

For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

1 Peter 4:17

Carolina The Band loses a longtime voice as Mitchell Whisnant steps away

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JEFF TURNER

Every band has a shape that shifts over time; new members arrive, others move on, and the sound bends around whoever’s left holding the songs. For Carolina The Band, that shape is changing again. Mitchell Whisnant, the North Carolina outfit’s lead guitarist and vocalist, has announced he’s leaving after five years of touring and recording with the group.

The news lands the way these things usually do in the music world: quietly, then all at once. Whisnant framed his exit not as a rupture but as the natural end of a chapter, saying the decision came after a season of reflection, gratitude, and anticipation for what lies ahead, both personally and professionally. It’s the kind of language that sounds diplomatic on paper but carries real weight when you consider what those five years actually looked like: van rides between towns, soundchecks in rooms that were half empty and then, eventually, full; the slow accumulation of a following built one night at a time.

That grind is where Carolina earned its reputation. The band has spent years crisscrossing the country, and the qualities that show up on any list of what makes a great live act, dynamic performances, exceptional songwriting, pristine vocals, and an enthusiasm for the audience that never reads as manufactured, are the qualities people keep coming back for. Carolina built that trust the old-fashioned way, night after night, and it’s part of why Whisnant’s departure feels significant rather than routine.

Bands survive lineup changes; the good ones almost always do. But there’s no pretending a five-year member walking away doesn’t leave a mark on the sound and the story. Whisnant’s guitar work and vocals have been part of Carolina’s identity since he joined, and whoever steps into that space next inherits not just a role but a relationship, the one between a band and the fans who’ve watched it evolve.

Carolina’s evolution has always been the story anyway. Each change has forced growth, and each new person has left a fingerprint on the collective style that defines the band. Whisnant’s exit is simply the latest chapter in that ongoing rewrite, and if the band’s history is any indication, they’ll keep moving, keep touring, and keep finding new ways to hold onto what made people fall for them in the first place.