It was one of the great and most important features of Methodism from the beginning— its connectionalism. It distinguished Methodism from the polity of Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and indeed most all non- Wesleyan Protestants of whatever stripe. Unlike Baptist polity, Methodists made their decisions at the conference level, not at the local church level. And certainly they made no major decisions about significant theological and ethical issues at the local church level. Those things needed the wisdom of the... Read more

“Divine Christology”: Loke Replies by larryhurtado After my posting yesterday pointing to the new book by Andrew Loke, and offering some reasons for my inability to assent to his argument, he sent me a reply. For the purposes of scholarly dialogue and public information, I agreed to post his reply. I have added a few comments in return, these enclosed in square brackets and identified by “LWH”. Dear Professor Hurtado, Thank you for posting your review of my book. It... Read more

Here is an excellent discussion of a recent important book on Jesus’ self-understanding, by my friend Larry Hurtado. by larryhurtado A new book presents the argument that the key reason that Jesus became a recipient of worship in earliest Christian circles is that he claimed divinity and the right to receive worship: Andrew Ter Ern Loke, The Origin of Divine Christology, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series,169 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). As it appears that I am Loke’s... Read more

The Old Testament is not the New Testament. It does not involve tales about Christians. Read more

For those of you who do not read Biblical Archaeology Review, I have an article in the Nov./Dec. 2017 issue on Dionysius Exeguus and how we got our current calendar. He’s the one who saddled us with our current calendar, by miscalculating the date of Jesus’ birth, which is somewhere between 2-6 B.C. The problem actually affected all of us in the West because Bede of Durham in the Middle Ages accepted Dionysius’ chronology, and put it in his Ecclesiastical... Read more

Here’s a recent post by Larry Hurtado on the Son of Man material in the NT. “The Son of Man”: An Obsolete Phantom by larryhurtado In recent comments, some have pointed to scholars who have posited that when Jesus used the expression “the son of man” he was referring to some other, future figure, not himself. This is a view that once was quite widely shared, and so will be found frequently in older commentaries and studies, and may still... Read more

Here is a story that has not merely moved many people, but has saved various lives. Jason Ray was the Tar Heel mascot Rameses (wearing the ram costume) who was tragically killed in a car accident ten years ago. The story tells you how vital becoming an organ donor really is. http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/20767501/university-north-carolina-mascot-2007-death-brings-decade-hope Read more

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Q. We have recently learned, through the publication of some deeply personal letters (and their analysis in a recent issue of Theology Today) between Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum that his relationship with her was not as previously advertised, and certainly not a purely ‘working’ relationship, but rather a menage a trois of sorts. Should this change the way we view his theology? Does this invalidate the integrity of his theological work? If it does change things, how does... Read more

Q. Your book does a great deal to humanize Barth in good ways, and to show us his pastoral and personal sides. One wonders how God evaluates his life in comparison to his Dogmatics which were mostly his life work? One wonders whether we tend to exalt the thoughts of a person without adequately seeing them in the context of all of who he was? And yet on the other hand, if we are to interpret a person at their... Read more