Last year at The Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting (ETS) some wily moves were made by some wily folks who planned in advance to pass some resolutions that would set a precedent to enhance complementarianism, slow down egalitarianism, and press onto the platform a way of doing business that had more than a few concerned. Many spoke with me about it and were more than saddened by the process and seeming power at work. When the history of late 20th... Read more

AP, Michael Casey: Leave it to the great minds at MIT and Georgia Tech to figure out a way to read the pages of a book without actually opening it. A team of researchers from the two institutions pulled it off with a system they developed that looks like a cross between a camera and a microscope. They said it could someday be used by museums to scan the contents of old books too fragile to handle or to examine... Read more

So reads Proverbs 19:17: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward them for what they have done.” That line can be unpacked to challenge our lack of charity today; our lack of trust that an act of charity toward the poor is an investment in the ways of God, an investment in the generosity of God, in the generous God who returns our charity with graces of charity beyond our imagination. Instead of calculating... Read more

David Zucchino: TAARNBY, Denmark — Johnny Christensen, a stout and silver-whiskered retired bank employee, always thought of himself as sympathetic to people fleeing war and welcoming to immigrants. But after more than 36,000 mostly Muslim asylum seekers poured into Denmark over the past two years, Mr. Christensen, 65, said, “I’ve become a racist.” He believes these new migrants are draining Denmark’s cherished social-welfare system but failing to adapt to its customs. “Just kick them out,” he said, unleashing a mighty... Read more

By Jonathan Storment Today I want to close out the series that I have been doing on Spiritual warfare interacting with Richard Beck’s new book “Reviving Old Scratch” One of the most encouraging things that I have seen over the past few years has been several of the progressive churches’ leading voices re-discovering how important church is. My biggest beef for a long time among my progressive Christian friends is that they were so quick to love Jesus, but not... Read more

NT Wright’s newest book, scheduled for publication in about a month and at this site a course is being developed about it, is called The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. I’ve heard Wright say some of these things; but never better than in this book. Today I want to post the opening two paragraphs and then a few lines from the second page … get ready because this book will be discussed widely: “Young hero wins... Read more

In a recent public lecture, NT Wright canvassed a wide terrain with clarity and grace and humor, all to zero in on the epistemology of love. It’s a good piece, which you can access at the link below, but I swiped a few memorable paragraphs. Enjoy. NT Wright: In part this was, as I said, a reaction to a church that had become dogmatic and out of touch. But the Epicurean revival of the Enlightenment was, more importantly, in the... Read more

Despite his position as a patriarch (Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”), Isaac doesn’t play much of a role in Genesis. In broad terms he serves as the son of Abraham and the father of Jacob. There is only one rather short segment where Isaac is the primary actor. In Genesis 24 Abraham sends his trusted servant to get a wife for Isaac... Read more

You can put them all into a single picnic basket: theological mainline liberals, Michael Moore political activists, right wing political afficianados, and conservative evangelical theological power brokers. They all taste the same to me. Two sides of the same power bar. It’s called power mongering. No other word for it. It’s also sinful and fleshly and worldly and directly contrary to the cruciform way of our Lord of glory. Make the consequences of your issue sound apocalyptic and ramp it up... Read more