What we think of Scripture can be mapped on a spectrum from God to human, from a divine product to a human product, from God-inspired truth to human perception of God’s ways in this world. That spectrum, though, gets complicated: Do we read it in conjunction with other elements — tradition, reason, experience — or are we to suspend those three elements to get back to the Text Itself? John Calvin and John Wesley differed on Scripture, not on its... Read more
Some, not many, church groups do not believe in the use of musical instruments in public worship. The major example is the Churches of Christ. No less than one of their foremost scholars, Everett Ferguson, takes up his case agains the use of instruments in public worship (The Early Church and Today, vol. 1). What are the arguments against the use of instruments? First, Christians sang in public worship already in the apostolic era: 1 Cor 14:15, 26; Hebrews 2:12;... Read more
I like Laura Turner’s piece in CT: The word feminist, for some, still conjures up images of second-wave bra-burners and radical leftist politics, forgetting entirely about women like Anne Hutchison and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. To let these characterizations define feminism is akin to letting a single denomination define Christianity: it is inherently limiting, untrue, and anathema to unity in Christ. The church needs feminism because at its core, feminism affirms to us what our faith teaches us about male and female in God’s Kingdom... Read more
Over the last three or four years I have known six, make that seven, friends or acquaintances who have died of cancers (only a little less than the previous two or three decades of my life). While most of the earlier cases I had known were older people (including one of my grandmothers), four of the most recent six seven had school aged children. The cancers left a total of eleven children ranging from preschool to early college mourning the... Read more
What will we call “PFG”? N.T. Wright’s magisterial, academic 2-volume study of Paul called Paul and the Faithfulness of God, volume 4 in his series called Christian Origins and the Question of God. I’ve got a PDF of Tom’s ground-breaking work and we’ll be discussing it until at least SBL in late November. So join along. I begin with this: In my lifetime only a few books have been like this one (set). I consider EP Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Martin... Read more
By Aaron Visser, one of our MDiv students at Northern: What is the role the pastor plays in this day and age? For hundreds of years, the role of the clergy focused on interpretation and study. The Bible was available in Latin and for some in Greek or another language, and a mostly illiterate public could not read the Bible for themselves. Therefore, it was up to the trained clergy to present and teach scripture. For a long time, the masses remained uneducated and illiterate, so the... Read more
In quiet and ordinary ways followers of Jesus are being transformed. Sometimes the transformation is a sudden burst where the changes are dramatic. Most of the time, though, the transformation is that slow process some theologians calls “progressive sanctification.” What should not be questioned is that God is in the business of transformation. What should also not be questioned is that it can happen — suddenly or slowly. Yet there’s one more theme: confidence. The apostle Paul said “we are... Read more
For a number of years some Baptists and some Catholics discussed points of unity and diversity and came to a wonderful statement, called The Word of God in the Life of the Church: A Report of International Conversations between The Catholic Church and the Baptist World Alliance, 2006-2010. I have clipped the introduction and the emboldened paragraphs of this statement from the Vatican site. What do you think of efforts like these? Will they filter down to the local congregations?... Read more
From Ann Voskamp: There’s a world that wants to force women into smothering plastic molds and whisper that she wants to be a shape and not free. There’s a relentless refrain that wants to cage women into polished skin, into glossy boxes, into cheap ornaments and tell her that she really wants this, they know she really wants this. There’s this beat that beats up women… and you can tell the real men from the immature boys: Real manhood never objectifies... Read more
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