Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Although I'm sure his Presiding Bishop finds this post suitable for framing, somehow Episcopal minister Frederick Schmidt's appeal to the authority of the church doesn't quite connect. Let's start with the issue he uses to illustrate his point: the proper colour for Advent: In a recent dust-up over liturgical colors, a colleague of mine was …
Continue reading "An Episcopalian's Appeal to Authority Falls Flat"
From Patrick Morley's Second Wind for the Second Half: No man can do everything he wishes. Choices must be made...For our personal decision making we should conduct a little civilian triage: Who can't live without you, or you without them? Who would be nice to help if you don't have to neglect the first group? …
Continue reading "…we should prioritize everything on the basis of who will cry at our funeral."
Sure sounds like it: During the first centuries of the church the greatest theological controversy sought to answer the question, “How is Jesus of Nazareth God?” A full discussion of the Christological developments can fill a library with books. I want to briefly address only one issue – the significance of Theotokos, which says that …
Continue reading "Do We Have Nestorians Teaching in Our Seminaries?"
It seems that my friends in the Pentecostal academic world have come up with another interesting link, this time to Jaques Berlinerbau's An Afternoon With the Society for Pentecostal Studies. It's an opportunity for me to opine on a subject that has lurked in the background ever since my brother's unfavourite Episcopal minister taught me …
Continue reading "Pentecostal Biblical Studies: Is Going Back to the Source Really All That Bad?"
George Conger documents the growing split in the Southern Baptist Convention over the adoption of Calvinism: The question of Calvinism is one of the major challenges facing American Christianity today, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) said last month. In an 18 October 2011 interview posted on the website of SBC Today, the …
Continue reading "Baptists: the "One Way Calvinists" Split Over Making It a Two-Way Street"
I have to confess that Brian McLaren's piece Seminary Is Not the Problem -- the Church Is is one of the most curious pieces I have ever read. It's not often that an academic (?) so baldly proclaims that the "real world" is so deficient that it should be remoulded to follow the academic one …
Continue reading "Reply to Brian McLaren: If Church is the Problem, Maybe We Should Get Rid of It"
As the leaves start to fall on campuses here in Tennessee, we are treated to the ongoing spectacle of Vanderbilt University using its nondiscrimination policy to progressively ban Christian student organisations from campus. There are so many logical nonsequiturs to this move that it's hard to know where to start: will they extend this to …
If the pro-life movement has a "theme" or "banner" scripture, it's this one: Consider that I have set before thee this day life and good, and on the other hand death and evil: That thou mayst love the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and keep his commandments and ceremonies and judgements, and …
Continue reading "Choose Life, Choose Death, Choose Surrender"
NPR picked up on the origin of Barack Obama's appeal "if you love me, you got to help me pass this bill.:" But that doesn't mean there still isn't the occasional moment reminiscent of a Bible story...Here's John 21:15, the New International Version, describing a scene between Jesus and his disciples: When they had finished …
Continue reading "Obama and the Jobs Bill: It's More Than Just Feeding Lambs"
Not this time: Pat Robertson advised a viewer of yesterday's 700 Club to avoid putting a "guilt trip" on those who want to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's. During the show's advice segment, a viewer asked Robertson how she should address a friend who was dating another woman "because his wife as he knows her …
Continue reading "Pat Robertson Isn't Correct on Divorce and Alzheimers"
Positive Infinity 