James D.G. Dunn prefaces Part Twelve of Neither Jew Nor Greek: A Contested Identity with these informed, if not depressing, words: There is something of an oddity about the title ‘Jewish Christianity’. For in a very important sense, that is what Christianity is — at least in its beginnings, and integrally in its character. In an important sense, often lost to view, the adjective ‘Jewish’ is quite unnecessary, since Christianity, with a Jewish Messiah as its central figure, and its holy... Read more

Alanna Ketler: While it may seem obvious that a good hike through a forest or up a mountain can cleanse your mind, body, and soul, science is now discovering that hiking can actually change your brain… for the better!… A study conducted by psychologists Ruth Ann Atchley and David L. Strayer found that creative problem solving can be drastically improved by both disconnecting from technology and reconnecting with nature. Participants in this study went backpacking through nature for about 4 days, during... Read more

Mall Christians, by Jonathan Storment Over the past few weeks, I have been blogging through Jamie Smith’s new book “You Are What You Love” and his insightful observations that the majority of us don’t know what we love, and that we are being formed and de-formed by cultural institutions in ways that we are largely blind to. I think in the first part of his book, Smith does a great job describing the problems we face in trying to make... Read more

Joshua W. Jipp, Christ is King: Paul’s Royal Ideology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. By Drew J. Strait, St. Mary’s Ecumenical Institute I don’t know about you, but it feels like I’m adding a new book on Paul to my Amazon wish list every other month. I’m not sure if even Usain Bolt could keep up with the current pace of good books written on the apostle Paul. How is the busy pastor, in particular, to keep up? Unless you are one who... Read more

by Andrea Bailey Willits Until this year, each diocese in The Anglican Church in North America has directed its own, unique ordination process. Now, five West Coast bishops have formed a steering committee under the name “ACNA West” to develop their own robust, streamlined ordination process preparing priests and deacons to serve across their dioceses. Bishop Eric Menees of the Diocese of San Joaquin is at the helm of the ACNA West task force, welcoming to the table Bishop John... Read more

James Doubek: In the study published in Psychological Science, Pam A. Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel M. Oppenheimer of the University of California, Los Angeles sought to test how notetaking by hand or by computer affects learning. “When people type their notes they have this tendency to try to take verbatim notes and write down as much of the lecture as they can,” Mueller tells NPR’s Rachel Martin. “The students who were taking longhand notes in our studies were... Read more

We all walk around with models, ideas, configurations, or theologies in our mind. When we encounter something or someone or a new idea or an old idea or a strange idea, what is in our mind both influences what we hear and permits us to interpret what we encounter. In that sense, Paul, too, was a theologian. But in the history of Christianity some very specific configurations have taken shape — systematic theologies as we see in folks like John... Read more

Kris put the sprouts in the oven to bake and I set the iron skillet on the stove to get it ready for the salmon, realized we’d need our weekly bottle of wine, so I thought I’d be uppity and asked Kris, “What kind of wine tonight, dear? White, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Riesling?” She answered without hesitation, “Red.” Down I went to our basement to see what we had, knowing all along what we had — a small supply of... Read more

Judy Molland: Next, we need kinesthetic pulpits! Across the U.S., the amount of time devoted to physical education and to recess has been declining sharply.Educators at Charleston County Schools, in South Carolina, want to change this approach. They know that more movement and exercise makes kids better learners. “If you went to anybody who’s in education, you say PE versus instruction? they say instruction every time,”says David Spurlock, the coordinator of health, wellness and physical education for the Charleston County... Read more