Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
It's been a bit since Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz "crossed the Rubicon" and set forth The Marriage Pledge, which calls ministers to stop officiating civil marriages.  Reactions have been mixed.  The fact that I can say that shows that the steady legalisation of same-sex civil marriage has forced Christians--who have been working to "preserve marriage", …
Continue reading "The Marriage Pledge: A Gratifying Step on Civil vs. Ecclesiastical Marriage"
Many of you know that, in spite of a lot of what turns up on this blog, I am a member of the North Cleveland Church of God and worked for the church's International Offices in the Lay Ministries Department for 13 1/2 years. Â So I'm not a stranger to at least some of our …
Continue reading "My Challenge to Church of God Ministers: Take the Marriage Pledge"
I've not had the time lately to post in as timely fashion as I would like, mostly because of the semester-by-semester crapshoot which is my PhD pursuit. But there's a long-term issue that deserves some comment, and that concerns a long-overdue attitude adjustment that Evangelicals need to make because of events in the Middle East. …
Continue reading "The Evangelical Comeuppance in the Middle East"
It's another week along the Southwest Freeway in Houston as Victoria Osteen has embroiled herself in a controversy over remarks about why we worship God. Â The usual people say the usual things, and the usual fracas ensues, just as it has over much of what her husband Joel says. I think we'd be better off, …
Continue reading "Victoria Osteen's Moment, or "What Are We Doing Here Anyway?""
@DaleMCoulter muses on his students: The task was not to defend the tributary of Christianity in which my students had first touched the waters of baptism, but to show them that it was fed by a vast river stretching back two millennia. In short, I defended Christianity by helping them swim upstream so that they could …
Continue reading "The Complicated Business of the "Tradition""
There's always something going on out there, and in the last couple of weeks one of those somethings has been the flap over the musician Michael Gungor's post on the age of the earth: Do I believe God exists? Yes.Do I believe Jesus is the Son of God? Yes.Do I believe that Scripture is God-breathed …
There’s a great deal of kerfuffle over Ann Coulter’s article about Samaritan’s Purse physician Kent Brantly, his contracting Ebola in the course of treating it Liberia, his transport to the CDC in Atlanta and the cost associated with the entire process. Evidently she thinks him insufficiently patriotic to have gone to another place and fight …
Continue reading "The Disciples of Ayn Rand and the Disciples of Jesus Christ"
A familiar mantra comes from Billy Graham's grandson: "The core message of the Christian faith has been lost in the public sector because what we are primarily known for is our political ideology or opinion," Tchividjian told The Christian Post. Over the last 30 years, the Religious Right has replaced Christianity's foremost message of the …
Continue reading "If You Don't Want People's Opinion, Don't Ask"
The oldest Pentecostal educational institution that I am aware of is the Holmes Bible College in Greenville, SC.  For many years Dr. Paul F. Beacham was its President, impacting the lives of many of his students.  In his 1950 book Questions and Answers on the Scriptures and Related Subjects (published by the Pentecostal Holiness Church publishing house), …
Continue reading "So Who Are My Mother and My Brothers? Part II"
I was recently directed to Frank Matthew Powell's blog post Dear American Church…I Am Not Renewing My Membership This Year.  He's touched on a subject I've mon occasion but now need to take up in earnest: the church as a club. Most people who decry the church becoming a private club have never spent much …
Continue reading "The Church as Club: My Response to Frank Matthew Powell"
Positive Infinity 