It’s pronounced something like “airrh-oo.” A small ferry-accessible island in Denmark, south of Svendborg which is south of Odense, which is in the middle of Denmark on the path from Copenhagen to Aarhus or Aalborg. Just a few lines and a few pics for you today from our time in Aeroeskoebing. We will do a longer post once we return. I heard about Aeroe from a colleague years ago, and always thought if we had a few days before an... Read more

Today’s post about the patristics is about 1 Clement 54-55. 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 54-55 he addresses taking blame for the common good. The appeal is to being “noble” and “compassionate” and “love.” The term “noble” translates gennaios is used a number of times in this letter (5:1, 6; 6:2; 25:3), and its sense is someone... Read more

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen. BCP Read more

Reconstruction: a Short History Allen Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and Director of the Civil War Era Studies program at Gettysburg College. Guelzo is a three-time winner of the Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize. Several of his books are seminal in their field. His reach is both academic and popular, the latter reflected in being a guest on the Jon Stewart Show. His website is www.allenguelzo.com. The following interview revolves around Guelzo’s latest book, Reconstruction:... Read more

Hello from Denmark! More to worry about before one needs to worry about it? Yes. Last year, Katie Burns got a phone call that shows what can happen in medicine when information runs ahead of knowledge. Burns learned that a genetic test of her fetus had turned up an abnormality. It appeared in a gene that, when it fails to work properly, causes heart defects, mental disability and other problems. But nobody knew whether the specific abnormality detected by the... Read more

From Cleveland Clinic: Dogs and walking. You might as well say ketchup and mustard. People often believe that people with dogs always walk them. You exercise the canine in the family, and they, in turn, exercise you, right? However, sometimes dog owners don’t quite live up to this standard. We know walking our dog is the right thing to do, and we assume other dog owners are doing it. But maybe it’s storming, or we worked late; we’re especially tired, and we end up... Read more

Jesus asked his audiences many questions. What if we stop with Jesus’ questions and let them interrogate us? What if we ponder and pray over Jesus’ questions? Which is exactly what Matthew Croasmun does in his church-friendly and small-group-friendly book, Let Me Ask You A Question: Conversations With Jesus. Organized into five weekday exercises around the one big questions, Croasmun asks these questions: Week 1: What Do You Want Me to Do for You? Week 2: Has No One Condemned You?... Read more

What does it mean to claim that the prophetic literature is authoritative, inspired, and inerrant (if you like that word)? Does it mean that the named prophet (say Amos) wrote a book now included in our Bible? Does it mean that the named prophet (say Isaiah) personally proclaimed all of the oracles contained in a given book of our Bible? Do the interpretations of the apostles and evangelists in the New Testament represent the intended meaning of the original human... Read more

 How does the apostle Paul stack up to best practices in modern conflict management? My DMin cohort that just graduated explored this question but it required that we look at modern conflict management theory: See McKnight and Mamula, Conflict Management and the Apostle Paul. From Lauren Visser and Greg Mamula’s introduction chapter … (abbreviated with some slight reformatting for the blog) … I will summarize two of the five approaches of their helpful literature review… now from their chapter. Some of... Read more

What happens to discipleship in apocalyptic theology? One things seems clear to me: virtue ethics is shelved for later. But does apocalyptic discipleship look like? Philip Ziegler, in his new important study on apocalyptic theology, Militant Grace: The Apocalyptic Turn and the Future of Christian Theology, presents a case for an apocalyptic discipleship. A few opening quotations to get the ball teed up: Discipleship is a category with which theology denotes the dynamic form of Christian life that results from the gift... Read more