Inerrancy broke into a debate in the late 1970s when Harold Lindsell (in The Battle for the Bible ) named names and laid down the law. The law was that a true evangelical believed in inerrancy. Steve Wilkens and Don Thorsen, both profs at Azusa Pacific, have a new book that takes on misperceptions of evangelicals. I like the title: Everything You Know about Evangelicals Is Wrong (Well, Almost Everything): An Insider’s Look at Myths and Realities . One of... Read more
CNN.com.. Do you think we need to purge public schools? What do you think of this move in DC? Washington (CNN) — The District of Columbia public school system announced Friday that it is letting 226 employees go for poor performance under the education assessment system IMPACT. Another 76 employees will be terminated because of licensing issues, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said in a news release. Of the 302 employees who are losing their jobs, 241 are teachers, she said. “Every... Read more
Prayer is soul-ish wandering and for me Psalm 25 exemplifies the prayer of soulish wandering. This psalm begins (vv. 1-3) by offering one’s very heart to God and then moves to petitioning for instruction. Soulish wandering longs for wisdom. Hence vv. 4-5: Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. But it also longs for mercy, too.... Read more
Imagine a world, Jesus once told his followers, where lost people get found. Jesus told three such parables, we call them the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. I want to dabble with the first two today. (You can read the texts after the jump.) We need to begin at the beginning: Jesus is eating with the wrong people: tax collectors and sinners. They are as much a stereotype as the Pharisees and legal experts who are... Read more
Here’s an arresting line about small groups, and it is one that expresses both the frustrations and dreams of many of us: “Instead of doing groups for the sake of experiencing community, groups experience community for the sake of participating in God’s redemption of creation.” This is the heartbeat of M. Scott Boren and it emerges in his newest book, Missional Small Groups: Becoming a Community That Makes a Difference in the World (Allelon Missional Series) . Here’s my claim:... Read more
Did you see this report in the NYTimes? The UK is beginning to decentralize its National Health Service … just as the USA is passing legislation to make health care better and cheaper by centralizing. Here are a few clips: Practical details of the plan are still sketchy. But its aim is clear: to shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. Under the plan, $100 billion to $125... Read more
Prayer is soul-ish wandering. It wanders from who we are and what we have done and what life is like into the presence of God where it again wanders into who God is and what God is like and what God has done and what God can do and what God will do, and then back again to us and then back again to God. This is not done casually or flippantly, but from the heart and soul and mind... Read more
Pete Enns has a new article up at the Huffington Post: Evolution and Religion: Why Religion Pollsters Should Go to Seminary First. Ignore the forum (especially the ads on the sidebar) and read the article – this is an interesting question. Just a paragraph here, condensed, to get a taste. Commenting on a poll commissioned by the Center for Public Policy of Virginia Commonwealth University (complete poll report here), Pete notes (also quoting Jerry Coyne): The poll reveals that one’s... Read more
In chapter four of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (Everyman’s Library) , we read the wonderful tale of Tom trading for tickets outside church on a Sunday morning. Before the chapter is over we discover those tickets were good for a prize, and what made the scene prickly fun was that a guest celebrity was on hand. Tickets were given for those who had memorized Bible verses, and when the memorizer had collected enough tickets he or she... Read more
From CNN.com… What is your local church doing? (CNN) — As I sat on the White House lawn 20 years ago and watched President George H.W. Bush sign the Americans with Disabilities Act into law, I knew it was a grand day for disabled people. However, I also knew that we still had a long way to go. Much like the civil rights legislation of the ’60s, I recognized that the president’s signature might change physical accommodations, but it would take... Read more
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