Theologians are fond of remarking that they can listen to someone speak on most any given topic in theology and know the fullness of that person’s theology. For instance, tell me what Jesus meant when he said “The kingdom of God has drawn near…” and we can figure out what you think about a host of topics. The one topic where this is perhaps most true is when a theologian explains salvation. Hence, Michael Bird, Evangelical Theology, part five concerns salvation and... Read more
Source Since the release of Evangelii Gaudium there have been countless articles and commentary about the economic portions of Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation. Some of the commentary has been downright bizarre, such as Rush Limbaughdenouncing the Pope as a Marxist, or Stuart Varney accusing Francis of being a neo-socialist. American conservatives grumbled but dutifully denounced a distorting media when Pope Francis seemed to go wobbly on homosexuality, but his criticisms of capitalism have crossed the line, and we now see the Pope being criticized and... Read more
My son celebrated his 18th birthday yesterday … quite the milestone. Wow! It has been a lifetime of development, growth, and learning. Life is always a process. To him the picture to the right was a lifetime ago, yet to me it seems like yesterday. This led me to think about a post I wrote several years ago – and repeat here with a few edits. There are a number of comments and questions that come up repeatedly in the... Read more
The issue is eschatology, and eschatology for Paul begins with the resurrection of Jesus, and that means new creation has been unleashed while there is yet more to come (N.T. Wright, in Paul and the Faithfulness of God). The Christian life is about learning in the “meantime” in the power of the Spirit through Christ. For Paul, the Messiah has come, and has been crucified and raised from the dead; and with that a previously unimagined door has opened in a... Read more
From WaPo: Actually, about 160 people, so far, know such details about their spiritual lives. They were the first participants in SoulPulse, a newly launched ongoing study of spirituality in daily life. It’s an “experiential” research survey inspired by pastor/author John Ortberg and conducted by a team led by Bradley Wright, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut and author of “Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You’ve Been Told.” Twice a day for two... Read more
This post is by Jonathan Storment. “Love in Practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” – Dostoevsky Martin Luther King Jr. Day is this coming Monday, and around this time of year I like to read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and ask myself questions like, “Am I spending time with people who are only like me? Does the Church I serve look just like me? Am I living the dream? Or just loving it?”... Read more
The following interview was done by David Moore. Dave blogs at www.twocities.org. John and Lindsey Scholl are dear friends. We met them during my interim pastoral ministry in Brenham, Texas. The Scholls met at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Both earned PhDs there. Lindsey’s emphasis is ancient history. Lindsey did her doctoral dissertation on Augustine and the Pelagian controversy. John has a love for all things medieval including a special interest in heretics/heresy which has loads of practical implications... Read more
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With a post last Thursday, Spirit or Scripture?, I began a series to explore the nature and action of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in the world. Although a focus on the Holy Spirit and gifts of the Holy Spirit may seem distinct from my more typical discussions of science and Christian faith, I think they are deeply intertwined. The nature of Scripture and the experienced reality of the supernatural lie at the very heart of many of... Read more
Where does eschatology, the belief in the future, begin for the Christian? for Paul? Right here: If Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead, then it meant either that the whole cosmos had gone completely mad or that ‘the resurrection’ had come forward into the present, in just this one case, with Jesus leading the way and everyone else following in due course. So N.T. Wright, in Paul and the Faithfulness of God (1062). It is crying pity that... Read more
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