We’re discussing how we build our knowledge of God, our theology, and using Wesley’s Quadrilateral (Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience) as an outline for our discussion.  Again, this whole topic was spurred by the argument made by Al Mohler and others that theism, the idea that God is active in the world, is at stake in the age of earth debates; this is an argument I strongly question, especially as I form my belief in theism from Scripture, Tradition, Reason and... Read more

Preachers of the cross  These morphings of the cross happened so fast that some early Christians must have been breathless in trying to take it all in. From the very beginnings the apostles – all of them – reshaped the kingdom dream of Jesus into a cross-shaped kingdom so that the cross defined the dream. Peter stood up on Day One of the Church at Pentecost and explained that Jesus’ death was both injustice and the redemptive act of God.  The... Read more

Let’s have a conversation about pastoral burnout.  Who will speak up and offer wisdom for all of us? The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could. Public health experts who have led... Read more

The Editors at CT affirm creation care in this editorial: The problem with the Gulf oil spill is not just that human lives were lost and that the Gulf economy is destroyed and that pelicans and turtles and other animal populations will be wiped out. All of that is bad enough. But worse is this: A sea hemorrhaging black oil now suffocates life instead of nurturing it. The sea does not resound with the glory of God but instead has... Read more

I’m going to have to be sensitive on this one: Steve Wilkens and Don Thorsen say their new book, Everything You Know about Evangelicals Is Wrong (Well, Almost Everything): An Insider’s Look at Myths and Realities say that not all evangelicals are Calvinists. I have to be sensitive here because bringing up Calvinism these days, with the resurgence of Calvinism among the NeoReformed, can draw heat if one is not careful.  But Wilkens and Thorsen are right: Evangelicalism, at least as they define... Read more

Did you see this? Kenneth Howell was booted from his job at the University of Illinois for teaching Catholicism. His job at the University of Illinois, as it happens, was teaching Catholicism.  After over two months of controversy over a firing that should have never have happened, he has been offered his job back. The incident exemplifies the scandals that continue at core institutions of our Western culture. It exposes, once again, the lie that is the popular conception of “tolerance,” so widely in vogue and by no... Read more