We continue our series on the apostolic fathers as look into 1 Clement 56–58. Our series uses for its text Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers. 1 Clement is from a leader in Rome to the leaders and people of Corinth, and in chps 56-58 he turns to the factions and fractions in Corinth with some corruption in leadership. Where to begin? With prayer. 1Clem. 56:1    Therefore let us also intercede for those who are involved in some transgression, so... Read more

We are going to be starting a new segment on my Kingdom Roots podcast where I will spend time answering listener questions. I would love to hear from you so find a quite place you can record your question and send it in to me using the voice recorder below. If you would prefer to type up your questions you can always send them to Chaz at [email protected] If you’ve never listened to the podcast before we have a great... Read more

What do you think of this RCC shift? How will it impact you or your church? From Reuters: VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Roman Catholic Church formally changed its teaching on Thursday to declare the death penalty inadmissible whatever the circumstance, a move that is likely to be viewed askance in countries where capital punishment is legal. The 1.2 billion-member Catholic Church has allowed the death penalty in extreme cases for centuries, but the position began to change under Pope... Read more

I was at a conference several years ago where the speaker, a well known pastor, reflected on science, evolution, and Christian faith. Human beings are story-telling animals. We use stories to understand who we are and why we are. The traditional Christian narrative provides a powerful story of who and why we are, or so it seems. In contrast evolution presents a rather poor and purposeless story.  Several years ago I reflected on the story we tell – in a... Read more

From Jim Bedell’s important blog post: The WCA must take the time to confess its’ complicity in idolizing and enabling BH’s behavior. They need to say “we allowed a man who had clear entitlement characteristics to roam without accountability, and this resulted in numerous instances where he acted in a sexually inappropriate way. We failed to confront him and hold him accountable. We were more afraid of Bill than of God.” This is the strongest argument that they cannot just... Read more

JS sends me a link to a post talking about the problem of academic accusing other academics of being a popularizer. A few thoughts after his fine post. If you are an academic, one of the worst things you can be called is a “popularizer.” It means you are not a serious scholar, even if you have published serious scholarly work. This came up in Donna Freitas newly published Consent on Campus. She urges her colleagues to engage students in classes about... Read more

Why should we care about the church fathers? After all, they lived a long time ago; they weren’t inspired; they had limited knowledge and perspective when it came to ancient history. Craig Allert, in his new book Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, opens by considering this question. There are several good reasons for us to care and to pay attention to their writings. The first is the most important. God’s Faithfulness. We look back to the writings and wrestlings... Read more

By Ethan McCarthy, an editor at InterVarsity Press and a staff writer at Christ and Pop Culture. You can follow him on Twitter at @e_mccarth. A Tenacious Witness: Reflections on the Revoice Conference Last Friday night I stood in the sanctuary of Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, singing “It Is Well With My Soul” with several hundred LGBT Christians. I was at the inaugural Revoice conference, which was convened to encourage and offer pastoral care for gay, lesbian, bisexual,... Read more

In a recent article on Get Religion, we encounter a new approach to adult believer’s baptism and thus a new argument against infant baptism: THE QUESTION: Why do most Christian churches baptize babies? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: This classic issue unexpectedly popped up as news on June 23 due to an Irish Times interview with Mary McAleese, an attorney and the former president of Ireland. McAleese assailed her Catholic Church for its practice of baptizing infants shortly after birth with parents making vows on... Read more