I am leading a discussion class at our church using a Veritas Forum dialogue at the University of Cincinnati between N.T. Wright and Philosophy professor Heidi Maibom. It is an interesting conversation – far deeper than it seems at first glance or listen. After giving an introduction to their respective worldviews Wright and Maibom (previous post) dive into the first big question: How do we know what we know? You can find the whole Veritas Forum conversation here. The link should... Read more
Ruth Tucker There have been a lot of “thoughts and prayers” since the double-mosque shooting in New Zealand that caused the killing of at least 50 and the wounding of many more. If that wasn’t bad enough, however, New York Representative AOC (aka Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), responded: “What good are your thoughts & prayers when they don’t even keep the pews safe?” She was specifically referring to shootings in houses of worship in Charleston, Pittsburgh and Sutherland Springs. Her words, according... Read more
Jesus can only be comprehended as someone in a story that is resolved by who he is and what he accomplished. But which story? Nicholas Perrin asks this question in The Kingdom of God: A Biblical Theology. It’s too easy to impose our own stories on what Jesus accomplished — whether it is a story of human dignity or progressivism or liberalism or conservatism or Calvinism or Anabaptism or whatever… Perrin offers a sound approach to the story inside the story... Read more
In Chapter 6 of Early Christian Readings of Genesis One Craig Allert turns to readings of the days of Genesis in the early Church Fathers. He looks at three writers, Theophilus of Antioch (ca. 120-185 exact dates uncertain), Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306-373), and Basil of Caesarea (ca. 329-379) – spending the longest with Basil. Although these three appear to take the days of creation literally – with Basil commenting on the length of a day as 24 hours –... Read more
James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky tackle the cultural trend (if not more) of thinking we can resolve our moral debates by greater science. Their book is called Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality. Important to their discussion is tracing the history of how morality moved away from tradition and revelation toward what could be established apart from God, apart from revelation, apart from tradition — that is, toward a “scientific” basis for morality. Let... Read more
A number of varied sources recently have led me to learn that some well-known preachers and speakers are preaching sermons they, in effect, did not write and use research they did not do themselves. I know some names and I’m not afraid to use them but I won’t do that in this post. To get more specific, some pay significant sums for researchers to do the exegetical and biblical work, sometimes involving writing introductions and even providing illustrations. Others are... Read more
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