Race tension is intractable in the USA, but that does mean there isn’t hope — for there. The place to begin is in the church, and it is in the church that we have the opportunity to embody a multiracial body of Christ and “experiment” with a radical kind of living — not by accommodating or tolerating but by loving and celebrating diversity in a unity in Christ. You may well Paul’s famous verse … In Christ there is neither... Read more
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Read more
Annette Brill Bergstresser: When [oft-imprisoned and blind] Matt [Yeater] became a student at AMBS in the fall of 2013, he faced higher hurdles at seminary than most students, both in terms of accessibility and academics. He had never studied languages before, and the resources available for studying biblical languages in Braille were limited. Paul Keim, professor of Bible and Religion at Goshen (Indiana) College and a sessional instructor of Hebrew at AMBS, began tutoring him in Greek two times a... Read more
By John Frye, #8 in his series of Top Ten Books in his life. You’re seated in a prayer circle of seven people. Other prayer circles dot the sanctuary. A young man in your circle begins to offer a litany of unexpected hardships, bouts of anxiety, his own version of a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad day. He concludes by saying, “I just don’t know why God is doing this to me!” Seated in your circle is Dr. Victor M. Matthews, former Professor of... Read more
From time to time I read a blog or hear someone call another person a “heretic.” Recently a blog friend asked me how I would define “heretic” or “heresy.” Yes, the term “heretic” can be defined. How do you define “heretic”? Let me suggest that the term “heretic” is used in three ways, only one of which (I believe) is justifiable — though I have little hope that the mudslingers will learn to use terms as they are supposed to... Read more
https://soundcloud.com/user-212639123/23-race-and-the-kingdom-interview-with-derwin-gray Read more
The issue is the number or percentage of African American males shot by police is DISPROPORTIONATE. Read more
Jonathan Merritt: When Tobin Grant, political-science professor at Southern Illinois University, analyzed General Social Survey data from 2006, he found that nearly half of evangelical Christians agreed with this statement: “It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” Forty-one percent agreed that “a preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works.” For these evangelicals, a woman’s place in... Read more
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, a story used extensively in Scripture and in Jewish and Christian writing as an example of judgment. But what is the sin under judgment? We are in the midst of a slow meander through Genesis, using the commentaries by John Walton (The NIV Application Commentary Genesis), Tremper Longman (Genesis in the Story of God Bible Commentary), and Bill Arnold (Genesis (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)) as guides. Abra(ha)m’s nephew Lot, a minor character to this... Read more
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