Matt Jenson has a sermon on The Church, Singleness, and Homosexuality (very relevant for my ethics class students). David Baruch points to a presentation that an orthodox archpriest from Belarus had to say to the PCUSA General Convention last year. Patrick Schreiner provides a quote from Aldous Huxley to the effect that atheism/nihilism are morally motivated. James McGrath and Roger E. Olson have both made the move to Patheos.com. Read more
Ben Myers has a good round upon of the KJV celebration including Tom Wright on Bible translation over at ABC Religion and Ethics. Read more
In the Catholic world note the release of a recent report from the USA that has done an in depth study of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. It concludes that celibacy and homosexuality are not to blame for sexual abuse and it is almost impossible to identify potential offenders. Read on at ABC news. Chris Skinner notes that Father Francis Moloney has also received an honorary doctorate from the Australian Catholic University. Read more
We’ve been on our Greco-Roman World trip now for three days and have seen some amazing things. There’s something almost magical about teaching the Bible in the setting where the stories took place. Our first day in Athens for example we taught on Paul’s sermon in Athens recounted in Acts 17 while standing on the traditional spot of the Areopagus, or Mars Hill as it’s also known, where he gave the address. It is just amazing as a teacher! The... Read more
The subject of “evangelicalism” is being discussed around the blogosphere a bit these days. First, Scot McKnight has a series of posts on “The End of Evangelicalism” with reflections on David Fitch’s book The End of Evangelicalism. The most recent one (# 5) includes the claim that the “master-signifiers” of evangelicalism are “the Inerrant Bible, Decision for personal salvation, and the Christian Nation”. Though I would point out that this is a very parochially American definition of evangelical. Most evangelical... Read more
Over at SAET website (Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology), of which I am a fellow, there is a very interesting and important debate going on between Jonathan Pennington, Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Spencer MacCuish, the Academic Dean of Eternity Bible College, a church-based college associated with Cornerstone Community church over the question of the most appropriate context for training pastors. Here’s the introductory blurb: In recent years evangelicalism has... Read more
The line in the Apostles’ Creed that Christ “descended into hell” is discussed by Sandy Grant over at the Sola Panel. Now the fact is that Christ did not descend into hell, so Grant suggests a few options open to us if we want to keep the Creed: 1. Drop the phrase altogether. But if we drop it from the Creed, that sounds like we are getting rid of our belief in hell. An unintended outcome, but it could be... Read more
My buddy Nijay Gupta (Seattle Pacific University) has a nine page review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins. He gives a good appraisal of the good, bad, and ugly in Bell’s book. Quite rightly, Gupta points out that Bell ignores God’s use of the church as the means by which his salvation reaches the world. Read more
Kenneth J. Stewart Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2011. Available at Amazon.com Ken Stewart is professor of theology at Covenant College. Stewart sets out to do the seeming impossible: explode common “myths” and misunderstandings about Calvinism and Reformed Theology. He deals with two sets of myths: Four Myths Calvinists Should Not Be Circulating (But Are) 1. One Man (Calvin) and One City (Geneva) are Determinative. 2. Calvin’s View of Predestination... Read more
Providing something of a travel log, I’m blogging from Istanbul’s airport on a 4 hour layover waiting for our connecting flight to Athens. Turkish Airlines was really great. We all slept pretty well. I got about 4 hours and some others 8 to 9 hours. Things have been going without a hitch. Currently about 3/4 of the group is sitting in a cafe drinking Turkish coffee using the internet. We have a fantastic group of students along. This is going... Read more
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