John Ortberg: Soul Keeping (A Review)

Last updated on: April 30, 2015 at 11:02 pm By Scot McKnight

By John Frye Soul Keeping: A Review [Image credit] John Ortberg has hit another grand slam home-run with his book Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You. The book accomplishes two aims: Soul Keeping presents John’s own journey toward soul health, and the book offers a moving tribute to the influence of Dallas Willard on John’s spiritual growth. I like the book because it brings a somewhat obscure and neglected word—soul—back into current discourse on Christian formation.... Read more

The Four Elements of Love

Last updated on: April 30, 2015 at 10:56 pm By Scot McKnight

Richard Foster, who has studied what we call “spiritual formation” his entire life, breaks down the history of how churches have understood the Christian life into six themes in his book Streams of Living Water. You can “map” churches and folks by these various and important streams. A prayer-filled life A holy and virtuous life A Spirit-empowered life A compassionate or just life A Word-centered life A sacramental life I contend each is both right and slightly off center. Christian maturity... Read more

Anglicans and Racial Reconciliation

Last updated on: April 29, 2015 at 2:25 pm By Scot McKnight

Source: Towards A More Diverse and Unified Future We began with a frank assessment of the current challenges facing the Anglican Church in North America in our mission with and among African Americans. The Book of Revelation gives us the multiethnic vision of the Church in which members of every nation, tribe, people, and language offer up their unified praise before the Lamb (Rev. 7:9-10). This biblical vision leads us to affirm a deeper commitment to both multiethnic and ethnic-specific expressions... Read more

But is the Seminary Listening?

Last updated on: April 26, 2015 at 6:48 pm By Scot McKnight

The most potent critique of seminary education today is that the seminary is out of touch with either the life of the real pastor or the life of the real church. I’m proud of our seminary, Northern Seminary, because it has learned to listen well: 1. To students — what they want from a seminary education, what they need from a seminary education, and what they believe they will need when enter into church ministry or continue with ministries they already have.... Read more

Galatians in Spanish

Last updated on: April 30, 2015 at 9:21 am By Scot McKnight

My friend and former student, Matt Williams (at Biola), created and guided the translation of the NIVAC volumes into Spanish and here is my Galatians… way to go Matt! Read more

Forgiving a Nazi Perpetrator: The Story of Eva Kor

Last updated on: April 26, 2015 at 6:52 pm By Scot McKnight

Source: So today after the trial session concluded, I [Eva Kor, concentration camp survivor] went up to Oskar Groening [Nazi Auschwitz guard]. He wanted to stand up but I said, “Please don’t, we do not want a repetition of last time.” I just shook his hand and said, “I appreciate the fact that you are willing to come here and face us. But I would like you to appeal to the old Nazis who are still alive to come forward... Read more

Theologies of Creation? (RJS)

Last updated on: April 30, 2015 at 6:31 am By RJS

A little over a month ago I began a series on Mark Harris’s new book The Nature of Creation: Examining the Bible and Science (see The Nature of Creation for the first post). Mark Harris is a lecturer in Science and Religion at the University of Edinburgh. He began his career as an experimental physicist, trained for the ordained ministry and is currently running the Science and Religion program in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. The... Read more

Waning of Apocalyptic Thinking among Evangelicals?

Last updated on: April 30, 2015 at 1:48 pm By Scot McKnight

At the heart of Matthew Avery Sutton’s sketch of evangelicalism (American Apocalypse) is the conclusion that at its heart evangelicalism was an apocalyptic movement. That commitment to apocalyptic thinking gave to evangelicalism a template to understand the realities of American history: whether it was rise of drinking and the Prohibition, the threat of communism, WWII, nuclear explosions, and the various social and moral tensions that created fear among evangelicals about the direction of the nation — each of these could... Read more

Andrew Sullivan at Q Ideas

Last updated on: April 26, 2015 at 6:40 am By Scot McKnight

From Rod Dreher’s site: [After President at Gordon College, Michael Lindsay] Andrew Sullivan was next on the stage, and engaged in a conversation with Q leader Gabe Lyons. Andrew — who is far less frantic, and far more serene, than I’ve ever seen him; leaving the Internet was plainly good for his health — was visibly moved by Lindsay’s remarks. “It’s inimical to me that any religious entity or organization should be compelled by government to compromise any jot or... Read more

St Bob of Abilene (by Jonathan Storment)

Last updated on: April 27, 2015 at 2:42 pm By Scot McKnight

St. Bob of Abilene Doing a funeral is one of the hardest and most enjoyable parts of my job. It is hard because it is emotionally exhausting, and death is never conveniently worked into a calendar. But I love doing funerals because they are the moments when everyone has ears to hear. We spend much of our lives trying to fool ourselves into thinking that we won’t one day die. And at a funeral all that pretense is stripped away.... Read more