By T I was fascinated, encouraged, excited and even a bit nervous as I read a recent post by another Patheos blogger and Christian scholar, Roger Olson. Yes, that’s quite a range of emotions for one blog post, but in many ways, Roger was telling my own theological story, and the story of many others, I suspect, in identifying a recent development in Christian theology that was, in his words, “new . . . even if not entirely novel.” Roger... Read more

We are reaching the end of our walk through The Lost World of Scripture by John Walton and D. Brent Sandy. After describing why inerrancy is an important term – although really inadequate to the task  “its limitations have been exposed as it has been put to the test in a variety of ways” (p. 283)  – John and Brent  move on to describe an approach that they feel better serves our purposes. The first thing to note is that... Read more

I am excited that my new book becomes available this week. I am even more excited at the number of pastors who have written to say they will be reading it and discussing it with their staff. One pastor told me recently his church is considering “dual” baptism — either infant or upon profession of faith. I hope the new book stimulates conversations about baptism, not least about how individualistic it has become, and how baptism needs to be connected... Read more

A good reading in the history of friendship makes manifest that friendship, probably most especially in the 20th Century, has changed dramatically. If one reads, for instance, the great two chapters on friendship by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, or the essays and letters on friendship by Cicero, one sees that friendship was a much-discussed and prized virtue. In fact, it can be said accurately — so far as I know the history — that males had male friends and women... Read more

By Dorothy Greco Dorothy Littell Greco writes about marriage, parenting, leadership, and the intersection of faith and contemporary culture for Christianity Today, Relevant Magazine, Start Marriage Right, and many other publications. She is a member of Redbud Writers Guild. Dorothy has also worked as a professional photographer for more than thirty years. She and her husband Christopher are passionate about helping men and women find health, wholeness, and joy through the pursuit of Christ. Dorothy loves kayaking, traveling, and concocting gluten... Read more

Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Read more

We mourn for the more than a thousand victims of the Roman Catholic priests and bishops of Pennsylvania. We are sorry to hear of Aretha Franklin‘s passing — she’s the Queen of Soul: NEW YORK (AP) — The clarity and the command. The daring and the discipline. The thrill of her voice and the truth of her emotions. Like the best actors and poets, nothing came between how Aretha Franklin felt and what she could express, between what she expressed... Read more

This is confession, pure and honest and authentic: I [Austin Ruse] became casual friends with Rod Dreher when he lived in Brooklyn with the beautiful Julie, and I lived in Manhattan alone. Newly married and not yet a father, he was writing movie reviews for the New York Post; this was before his move to National Review and ever-increasing fame. We talked back then about what we referred to as Crunchy Cons. I called it Conservative Bohemianism, but Crunchy Cons was better. We were never... Read more