Brigid Schulte: It’s a simple white oval with three big, black letters: JMU. But to Wilma Bowers, who sports it proudly on her black Audi sedan, it’s an act of subversion. In just about any other community, driving around with a bumper sticker for James Madison University, rated one of the best schools in the South, would be a point of pride. But this is McLean, one of the most affluent communities in the United States. Flaunting a JMU bumper... Read more
Chapter six of Ronald E Osborn’s new book Death Before the Fall: Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering looks at the enclave mentality in American fundamentalism, especially as it relates to biblical literalism. Osborn’s description the fundamentalist approach seems a bit extreme at times – although we will all see elements of truth in this description. It is also important to understand that Osborn is speaking from his experience. But for the true believer … intellectual honesty does... Read more
Heaven, what used to be the primary motivator for many to become a Christian or be faithful of a Christian, has fallen on hard times. I wonder what you think about heaven? But I’m not asking about just your theory. Instead, I want to come at this from a pastoral angle: What would you tell a seventeen year old Christian kid who discovers she has an incurable cancer? Or who has a friend who was killed in a car accident? or... Read more
Globe and Mail In a meeting room under Holy Name Cathedral, a rapt group of black Roman Catholics listened as Barack Obama, a 25-year-old community organizer, trained them to lobby their fellow delegates to a national congress in Washington on issues like empowering lay leaders and attracting more believers. “He so quickly got us,” said Andrew Lyke, a participant in the meeting who is now director of the Chicago Archdiocese’s Office for Black Catholics. The group succeeded in inserting its... Read more
So what were Paul’s aims? What was he doing? What did he think he was doing? (Paul and the Faithfulness of God) To see Paul as the philosopher who provided the ideological validation for the worldwide rule of Jesus would hardly capture the whole of his thought, but it would possess more than a grain of truth, and one regularly screened out. Paul was precisely not an isolated, detached thinker. That is why the isolated thinkers in the western academic... Read more
From Allan Bevere: We have all seen the “things Jesus never said” memes on social media, and there are many of them as a Google image search demonstrates. Such memes are a way of offering a zinger to Christians with whom we disagree theologically, socially, and/or politically. And while such memes can be humorous, in reality they are also rather silly, and they help us avoid the intellectual rigor necessary in working through difficult theological and moral issues, in which the Bible can... Read more
Source: What’s the craziest promise you’ve heard in a sermon? When Pastor Zack Zehnder flippantly offered free tattoos to his congregation, little did he expect people to actually take him up on it. During a recent sermon about acceptance at the Cross Mount Dora church in Mount Dora, Florida, the pastor had said: “If anybody would like to go out and get a tattoo of the logo of the cross that we have for this church we will find money... Read more
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more
Source: Just 25 games into the NCAA tournament, the billion dollar bracket bubble has already burst. Going into the third wave of games on the second day of the NCAA tournament, only three perfect brackets remained in the Quicken Loans billion dollar bracket contest. And all three had George Washington beating Memphis. As Maurice Creek’s game-tying three came up short, so went the retirement plans of the three remaining hopefuls. Billionaire Warren Buffett couldn’t have picked a better year to... Read more
Source A recent chapel talk by Cedarville University’s new president has sparked discussion over campus changes related to his complementarian view of gender roles. In his March 10 chapel talk, Thomas White discussed the concept of headship based on 1 Corinthians 11:2–16. “We operate with the presupposition of inerrancy. So what I tell you today is not something that I wrote, I made up, or I started,” he said. “I’m just going to preach to you what the text says.” Cedarville, which recently... Read more
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