And not a moment too soon either: Evangelicals appear to be headed for some kind of marginalization, and this will hurt. Nevertheless, evangelical Christianity began on the margins of society and only in fairly recent decades moved into the mainstream. As it turns out, our cultural influence may wane and our options for recovering that …
The Two Questions Many Churches Never Stop Answering I Never Asked
Today is Fake Inauguration Day in the United States. Our President, coming from a triumph many said would never happen, was actually sworn in yesterday. If I were him, and I wanted to stick it in the eye again to serious Christians, I would have done the thing on Sunday, the way other places do …
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Book Review: Frank Bartleman's Azusa Street
Anyone who has been around Pentecostal academic circles (and yes, they do exist) has heard a great deal about the Azusa Street revival of 1906, an event which marks (but does not solely define) the beginnings of modern Pentecost. And they've heard many things about. But how do they know these things? How, for example, …
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Pat Robertson not a Creationist? That Depends Upon How You Define the Word
Up in Richmond, they're aghast at this latest oracle from the Tidewater: Televangelist Pat Robertson challenged the idea that Earth is 6,000 years old this week, saying the man who many credit with conceiving the idea, former Archbishop of Ireland James Ussher, “wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he said that it all took 6,000 …
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Playing the Cards We're Dealt
My regular readers are probably aware that, among my other activities, I'm pursing a PhD in Computational Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. It's been an experience for several reasons. Starting such a degree in my superannuated condition wasn't an easy thing to do for that reason alone. Being both on the faculty …
Veni, Venite, or Coming to Terms with Proper Latin Pronunciation at Christmas
One of the significant changes that has come to this blog in the year fast ending is the incorporation of proper WordPress statistics for the webmaster to contemplate. This gives me a better idea of where my readers are coming from and what interests them (better than Google Analytics, I might add). This blog (and …
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Passing Up Making Lemonade on Civil Marriage
In Israel, of all places: Hundreds of Israeli evangelical couples have traveled out of the country in order to get married because the Jewish government does not officially recognize their faith. Church leaders are escalating efforts to change that. The Council of Evangelical Churches in Israel (CECI), which includes 51 churches and organizations such as …
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We Only Have One True Country
It's the home stretch for our election season. This is a "make or break" election in many ways. It will both define and set the course for the kind of country we are and kind of people we are. And it's been competitive. As I discussed in the last post but one, it's also been …
Ever Wonder Why the Republicans are Running a Mormon and a Roman Catholic?
Our hopelessly biased media brings up the subject of Mitt Romney's Mormonism on a regular basis. One way they can do this while not attracting attention to themselves is to go out and interview Evangelicals on why they're struggling with voting for a Mormon. This is a clever diversion that, while bringing up an interesting …
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Churches Aren't the Only Institutions Ruined by Egos
Works even for a "place" like WikiLeaks: But leading Anonymous accounts on Twitter...have now withdrawn their support (of WikiLeaks)...Calling the split “the end of an era”, Anonymous tweeted: “It was an awesome idea, ruined by egos.” I've commented on the adverse effect of "egos inflatable to any size" ruining efforts in the church, especially with …
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Positive Infinity 