Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
The news that Lifeway Christian Stores will all close brought back a memory of something that happened in one of them that was, in some ways, life altering. In 2010 the Church of God decided to abolish the Department of Lay Ministries, which I was working for at the time. That left me without a job …
Continue reading "My Lifeway Memory: Doing Church of God Business in a Baptist Bookstore"
I've spent the past several weeks going on about social and political things, but this week I'd like to discuss a pet peeve of mine in the glorious church Church of God I'm a part of: the issue of honorary doctorates, and the calling of their recipients "Doctor."Â Fortunately our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. …
Continue reading "About Those Honorary Doctorates in the Church of God…"
It's not often that Vox gives a voice (which is what they're supposed to do) to a Baptist, but one John Thornton, Jr., a youth pastor in North Carolina, has written an intriguing article about why millennials are so anxious and burnt out these days. As a college professor who teaches in a state which …
Continue reading "Running Scared: My Response to a Baptist Pastor on the Millennials"
Tom Jacobs at the Pacific Standard finds himself surprised at the way voters conflated prosperity and morality, which eased their way to vote for Donald Trump: The findings suggest the Trump campaign's emphasis on the candidate's success in business—which has subsequently been shown to be based largely on smoke and mirrors—increased the perception that he …
Continue reading "The Shocking (to Some) Truth About Prosperity and Morality"
Some people evidently work under that assumption, as this ugly event in New York attests: New Yorkers woke up Thursday morning to find colorful new street art popping up on trash cans along the Lower East Side. Their message is clear – Trump and his supporters are "trash." The controversial posters feature images of “Trump …
Continue reading "Getting Rid of the White People Won’t Get Rid of Christianity"
In Randal Rouser's post on village atheism, after he lists the characteristics of village atheists, he makes the following observation: As I already noted, there are also many village Christians who exhibit similar traits. (But the way, it should not surprise us that when village Christians leave the church, they typically become village atheist.) To …
Recently Duane Alexander Miller, a long-time friend of this blog, wrote Two Stories of Everything: The Competing Metanarratives of Islam and Christianity. My review of this excellent book is here at Global MIssology.
Well, it's that time of the biennium again, when our ministers and their church pack up and spend several million dollars on the gathering called the General Assembly. I've made it my habit to comment on the agenda, which can be found here. The last time, OurCoG copied my comments in serial format (guys, next …
Continue reading "Some Thoughts on the 2018 Church of God General Council Agenda"
Some readers of the blog are doubtless buffaloed at my blasé attitude regarding what Anglicans call WO (women's ordination.) I explain some of my rationale here but some of that comes from being a product of the Palm Beach social system. That system--exclusivistic and highly non-industrial--moulds everyone who lives there in ways that aren't obvious …
Continue reading "Lessons about Women’s Ordination from Palm Beach’s Social System"
The board of Southwestern Baptistic Theological Seminary's volte face is stunning: After midnight in Germany, while Patterson was sleeping, the chairman of the board of trustees, Kevin Ueckert, ordered Scott Colter to wake Patterson for a phone call. On the call, Ueckert told Patterson he was fired effective immediately, with no salary, no health insurance …
Positive Infinity 