All hail to Kris and HT:JS for so many links sent this week! That’s some serious birding! Noah Strycker’s Birding Without Borders is a firsthand account of a serious case of birdmania. In 2015, at age 28, Strycker set out to see as many bird species as he could in a single calendar year. This feat of extreme birding is called a Big Year, and it can be pursued on the local, state, continental or global scale. Strycker’s goal was... Read more

We’ll call this series FWOF — Friday with our fathers. By “fathers” I mean the Apostolic Fathers (=AF), and I will rely upon my longtime friend and seminary classmate (ahem, we overlapped one year, and I’ll not mention who graduated first but there’s a good chance it was) Michael Holmes, and his splendid edition of the fathers called The Apostolic Fathers. I’m in no hurry here; we need to live up to Kenneth Stewart’s observation that the AF have been neglected... Read more

By Ruth Tucker  Author of From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya Katie Luther Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife For those looking for biblical study on egalitarianism, Discovering Biblical Equality is the ticket. Back to Ruth’s post.             If it is unbiblical to have women as pastors, how can it be biblical to have women who function in formal teaching and mentoring capacities to train and fit pastors for the very calling from which the mentors themselves are excluded?... Read more

James K. A. Smith explores the theological significance of the Fall and the intersection of the Fall with original sin and evolution in his essay in Evolution and the Fall (William T. Cavanaugh, James K. A. Smith editors). Smith is a professor of philosophy at Calvin College holding the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview.  He comes at the question of the Fall from a perspective consistent with the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism... Read more

By Lucy Peppiatt @lucepeppiatt @wtctheology Principal of Westminster Theological Centre and here too! I recently attended a really enjoyable theology conference in LA. I listened to thought-provoking papers and presentations, met some interesting new people, gave a paper myself on a topic I love, and had some good conversations. I also attended a lunch hosted by Logia, a new initiative launched by the Logos Institute, ‘which seeks to support current female students and staff and encourage women to pursue divinity... Read more

By Chris Seidman It’s no secret that most stay-at-home moms or dads struggle on occasion to feel a sense of appreciation, worth, or significance amidst the day-to-day grind of raising children. During a season of life when she was at home full-time with their children, Dr. Tony Campolo’s wife Peggy would occasionally face the question, “And what is it that you do?” Eventually she crafted the following response. “I am socializing two Homo Sapiens into the dominant values of the... Read more

From Desiring God: When a student with the pastoral call arrives at the level of seminary preparation, something is different from what was happening in college education and high school education (at least, usually it is). Not only has he moved beyond the adolescent years of transition from boyhood to manhood, but he is now submitting himself to a community of teachers who, by their precept and example, are called to shape his mind and his heart for vocational pastoral... Read more

Although religious people including evangelical protestants like science, they are not so sure about about scientists. The next chapter in the new book by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle, Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think, explores the view that religious and religiously unaffiliated Americans have of scientists. They begin the chapter with the observation that American society tends to be segregated according to view. This is true on religious grounds – but also on political and... Read more

In the Kuyperian tradition Scripture is a non-negotiable. It is central. It is sufficient. Theology stands or falls with the truthfulness of Scripture. This is taste of chp 3 in Craig Bartholomew, Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition. In too much of contemporary American Christianity, including much of evangelicalism, Scripture does not have the place it has in the Kuyperian tradition. Scripture is not known because it is not read and it is not read because it is not seen as important... Read more