I began leading a discussion class last Sunday using The New Testament You Never Knew, featuring N. T. Wright and Michael Bird. In the initial session Tom Wright comments that the New Testament is explosive and powerful. I think anyone who picks up the New Testament will find, if they give it a chance, that it is one of the most explosive books ever written. … it forms one complete, rather strange, but very powerful book. He goes on to... Read more

Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church Read more

What are the crucial theological foundations of pacifism? Ron Sider, in If Jesus is Lord , reduces it to five crucial theological foundations: Incarnation, resurrection, inauguration of the kingdom, anti-world, and the importance of the church. Biblical pacifism rests on several central theological affirmations. If the historic creeds are correct that Jesus is truly God and truly human, then rejecting Jesus’s teaching on loving enemies involves fundamental christological heresy. Only if Jesus rose bodily from the dead does it make sense... Read more

Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church Read more

The next question in Rebecca McLaughlin’s new book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion turns to the Bible. How can you take the Bible literally?  The question, however, misses the point. As Christians we want to read the Bible faithfully – which means literally only when and how it was intended to be read literally. Metaphor, parable, poetry, apocalyptic imagery – all of these are featured in the Bible. We have to start by realizing that,... Read more

By Laura McKnight Barringer She’s worth more than power and protecting a name. I work in the field of primary education, and I am constantly aware of the complexities of educating girls. Don’t quote me on this, but I read research in the not-too-distant past that highlighted an inherent difference between boys and girls in maths and sciences: When a boy gets a C in a math or science course, he counts himself a success and moves on to the... Read more

Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church Read more

Andrew Bartlett, in his new book Men and Women in Christ (MWiC), asks if Paul was actually a kind of 1st Century egalitarian? Bartlett focuses on 1 Corinthians 7. What are his conclusions? 1. Despite the prominence of 1 Corinthians 7 as the longest discussion of marriage in the New Testament, and despite its containing the only explicit New Testament mention of a husband’s authority, complementarian analyses have tended to overlook it or downplay it. 2. Paul’s view of the world is... Read more

… church history. We continue with our series by Ruth Tucker, and we want to know (as well) your best believe-it-or-not church history story. Now Ruth Tucker: When Saint Bruno in his younger years was studying in Paris the city was caught up in a sea of mourning. A renowned monastic scholar, much admired for his holy life, had died. But as the funeral cortege proceeded to the tomb, the dead scholar rose out of the coffin and cried out,... Read more

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.BCP Read more