In Defense of Andy

Last updated on: May 9, 2015 at 11:12 am By Scot McKnight

A blast from the past. Andy Stanley, in an interview with Ed Stetzer, was asked about “verse-by-verse” preaching. He called it “cheating” and … his response leaves me with a series of questions that still deserve discussion today: What did Ed mean by “verse-by-verse”? What did Andy understand by “verse-by-verse”? What relationship is there between “expository” preaching and “verse-by-verse” preaching? Some have equated the two and therefore criticized Andy for dissing expository preaching? But are they the same? (I would... Read more

Pew Center’s Newest Study

Last updated on: May 13, 2015 at 5:21 am By Scot McKnight

Source: To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith.1 But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from... Read more

What This Proves?

Last updated on: May 11, 2015 at 9:22 am By Scot McKnight

I’d say this establishes that the progressive/liberal wing is in the ascendancy in the media and in denunciations while the traditional/conservative may well be the majority? Andrew Wilson, on the recent elections in England: What is striking, however, is just how far this phenomenon extends. What confounded the pollsters was not the people who voted Tory but wouldn’t admit it to their neighbours by sticking signs on their lawns, but the people who voted Tory and wouldn’t admit it to... Read more

Tom Oord: Evil and Big Questions, Like Evolution

Last updated on: May 7, 2015 at 11:17 am By Scot McKnight

Tom Oord: As I prepared for my presentation, I realized that engaging intellectually challenging questions requires courage and humility. Too often, Christians shrink from asking the hard questions and dealing with the realities of their possible answers. So they need the Spirit and community of faith to in-courage them. But Christians can be sometimes tempted to think their own particular answers are obviously the correct ones. So they need the humility exemplified best in Christ. Mature Christians are humble and courageous enough... Read more

Jesus Appearing to Muslims in their Dreams (Jonathan Storment)

Last updated on: May 12, 2015 at 12:49 pm By Scot McKnight

Christians are so hard to tolerate, I don’t know how Jesus does it. -Bono Sometimes I am embarrassed to say that I am a Christian. I am not embarrassed of Jesus, I am embarrassed by his representatives. I know this is a cliché, but there is a reason that it has been said so much, so often, and by so many. It is hard to listen to all the stuff that is done and said in the name of Jesus... Read more

Salvation as Process

Last updated on: May 10, 2015 at 6:50 am By Scot McKnight

From A Fellowship of Differents. Every fall the church I grew up in had a revival, a weeklong set of evening services designed to get our neighbors saved. In order to do so, we first had to invite them to church, which took more pluck than I usually had. When they got to our church service, they encountered an enthusiastic church, sacred music ramped up to its best, and a revivalist or evangelist who could tell stories that would make... Read more

Hoodwinked into a Culture of Fear

Last updated on: May 7, 2015 at 11:14 am By Scot McKnight

Gareth Higgins: Our culture has been hoodwinked by the idea that we’re living in the center of crisis, when actually we’re in the midst of the evolution of hope. It is true that each killing is a universe of loss to the victim’s loved ones, and solidarity with the suffering of others is not only part of the privilege of being human but a step on the path to the world in which no one will have to suffer that... Read more

Mother’s Day: Sensitive Thoughts (Michelle Van Loon)

Last updated on: May 6, 2015 at 6:10 pm By Scot McKnight

Michelle Van Loon: This is hell week for those who are grieving the loss of a mother or child. Greeting card companies, florists, jewelers and kitsch vendors urge us to celebrate the mothers in our lives. School children across America are making crayoned cards to gift to their mamas this Sunday. Churches have mothers stand for a round of applause or pass out carnations to adult women as they leave the service. Though some churches have grown more sensitive to the fact that... Read more

Not a Scientific Hypothesis (RJS)

Last updated on: May 12, 2015 at 6:28 am By RJS

Chapter four of Mark Harris’s book The Nature of Creation looks at creation according to the bible outside of Genesis 1-3 (Genesis 1-3 was covered in the previous chapter and our previous post Theologies of Creation?). The key point is that “God as Creator cannot straightforwardly be treated either as a scientific hypothesis to be reasoned about or an entirely objective other.” (p. 81) Creation as described in scripture is not a philosopher’s designer or a scientist’s cause. Creation is... Read more

Moving Beyond the Problems

Last updated on: May 9, 2015 at 8:57 am By Scot McKnight

Kyle Roberts, a former professor at Bethel who has since left and is now teaching in other venues, has a post up on the Progressive Christians portal at Patheos about the problems with inerrancy. At one time this was called “deconstruction” though technically speaking this is not deconstruction. If you read the whole or Kyle’s post you will discover a tension — between his clear affirmation of Scripture of God’s Word and his critique of the term “inerrancy” as a... Read more