Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start … The next chapter in Douglas and Jonathan Moo’ recent book Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World looks at Genesis 1 and a few other chapters that highlight creation. Jonathan begins with encouragement to read Genesis 1 through a couple of times and let it flow without dissection and study. In the beginning the earth was formless and void or empty. The story is unabashedly… Read more

So begins a new series on this blog by our friend Ruth Tucker. My favorite book on the Anabaptists is by Harold Bender, The Anabaptist Vision. What are your recommendations? Now to Ruth: Here is the first installment of a series on the history of Christianity. My thanks to Scot for jumping at the idea. There is no other field of history that features more crazy characters and captivating controversies. Thus, virtually all of my writing has found its footing… Read more

Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church Read more

Here’s his little response to all those who have been asking him questions about his new book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation. Read more

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; 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

Where did summer go? The Burnt Church’s questions: A crowded mosaic on the floor of an early Christian church overlooking the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel apparently depicts the Miracle of the Multiplication, in which Jesus fed a multitude of 5,000 followers with just five loaves of bread and two fish. Going by Byzantine standards, the floor art in the so-called Burnt Church in Hippos-Sussita is of mediocre workmanship with regard to both the mosaic tiles and the scenery… Read more

Tuesday’s post on creation care highlighted the need for a careful and informed approach to the bible and to biblical theology. There are not easy and straightforward answers to many of the questions raised in our modern world. Unfortunately many Christians have a rather poor understanding of Scripture as a whole and of the nature of the Bible. This does not help matters. Sermons alone are not usually sufficient to raise biblical literacy and understanding. Those of us who attended… Read more

It is, one would think from listening to many so-called thinkers today, that Western Civilization is dead-and-gone, a subject beyond-which-we’ve-moved, and other cultural insults. That being educated into, or formed by, Western civilization is a dangerous illusionary world, a bad social imaginary. Not so, says David Brooks in The Second Mountain. Many say that Western Civ and this kind of Great Books education is an elitist enterprise dominated by dead white males. But Western Civ was and remains radicalism—a subversive, revolutionary… Read more

How can a two to three thousand year old book (with some portions likely older) speak to a 21st century Western audience? Where is the relevance? While some things remain constant (e.g. the draws of selfish desires, money, sex, and power), many of our challenges and cultural norms are quite different. Among other things, animal sacrifice is not a going concern. Many in the church strive to make the stories relevant to draw in the unchurched. I recall a sermon… Read more