Alva Noë: Asking students to leave their devices at the door this is something I don’t feel that I have a right to do. Even when I think, even when I know, that it would be a good thing. Now it would be different if my job as an instructor were like that of an engineer whose task is to optimize a production process. But students are not products. They are not plants in a nursery. They are free agents,... Read more

How can we hold a reasonable conversation on a controversial issue? There are many issues on which reasonable, dedicated, and devout Christians disagree. The form and intent of the Lord’s Supper (communion or Eucharist), the appropriate age for baptism, the mode of baptism, appropriate roles for women in the church, politics, economics, the age of the earth, evolution, and much more. In some cases there may be clear “better” answers, in other cases the biblical evidence is entirely ambiguous.  Some... Read more

At the very heart of rethinking the meaning of gospel, which I do in The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited , is one central question: Is 1 Corinthians 15 the gospel or not? That leads to a chaser question: Is 1 Corinthians a sketch of the full gospel or only part of it? Or, is this an adequate or incomplete presentation of the gospel? We can say the same of 2 Timothy 2:8: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from... Read more

Jason Micheli is a United Methodist pastor in DC and blogs at www.tamedcynic.org They write out my chemo schedule by hand each month, scribbling the names of my drugs on different days in a curly hybrid of print and cursive, before making photocopies and handing one to me. The schedules can prove hard to read, which I pointed out to my oncologist a while back: “What’s this prescribed on my schedule for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday?” “Ah, that’s a... Read more

 By Michelle Van Loon, who blogs at patheos.com/blogs/pilgrimsroadtrip and tweets at michellevanloon.com Once upon a time – and for most of Judeo-Christian history following – there were no Sunday School classes or parachurch youth programs that focused on transmitting faith from one generation to the next. There was simply the kind of lifestyle God prescribed in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Certainly other forms of apprenticeship, and eventually, more formalized forms of theological education, emerged over time. But those were built on the Hebrew foundation of... Read more

What is conversion? Maybe the better question is When is conversion? Do you think folks convert at a single moment or do you think it happens (for some) over time? Do you think it happens different for different people — some all at once and others over time? Let me give a big sociological sketch first as this will help us rethink conversion. Studies reveal that folks, in a general sense, “convert” to the Christian faith in one of three... Read more

Wes Granberg-Michaelson: While Christianity may be on the decline in the United States, the world isbecoming more religious, not less. While rising numbers of “nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation when asked — claim the attention of religious pundits, the world tells a different story. Religious convictions are growing and shifting geographically in several dramatic ways. The center of Christianity has shifted from Europe to the global South. The religious landscape is particularly changing for the world’s Christians.... Read more

Grant to us, Lord the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. BCP Read more

Well done, Amy: The implication of pieces and postures like Grudem’s this week impacts young evangelicals. Evangelical leaders are going to lose an entire generation of Christians in the wake of our current political and social climate. This is not an article asking millennials to leave Evangelicalism because I believe it can’t be saved, nor is this article saying that Evangelicalism is dead. It also is not a proposal of a useful way forward in this“dumpster fire” of an election.... Read more

By John Frye Scot McKnight has recently posted on the presentations of the Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy. One of those presenters is Peter Enns. Peaked by these posts, I re-read Enns’ book The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending the Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. I’d like to give my personal review of the book because if you take time to read the amazon.com reviews you will discover that Enns’ book is considered “garbage” all the... Read more