Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight
Not often observed in the conversation (ahem, debate) about women in ministry is 2 John, a letter addressed by John (according to traditional scholarship) to a woman who is the leader of a house church. The whole text immediately follows so you can read it, with important expressions italicized:
2John 1 The elder,
To the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— 2 because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever:
2John 3 Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.
2John 4 It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
2John 7 Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. 9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. 11 Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work.
2John 12 I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.
2John 13 The children of your chosen sister send their greetings.
Yes, in church history some have argued that the “elect lady” of 2 John is the church itself and not a female leader. But William David Spencer, in his final piece as editor of Priscilla Papers (28.3, 2014, pp. 1-4), has devoted some space to showing that in fact it is far more likely that the “elect lady” is the church leader of a house church.
1. 2 and 3 John are close enough that few question the same authorship, making parallels between the letters especially important.
2. Inasumch as 3 John’s address is Gaius, who is clearly the leader of that church, it follows that the “elect lady” of 2 John is most likely the same at “her” church. Some speculated her name was “Electa” or “Kuria” (from the Greek of 2 John 1).
3. The use of “children” in the Epistles of John refers to church members. The lady must be distinguished from the children and, therefore, the “lady” cannot be the church itself.
4. By calling them “your children” the “lady” functions as the pastor of those children, much as Gaius does in 3 John. To call the “lady” the church as a whole, then, fails at the simplest level of language.
5. Women were the point persons/leaders in many early house churches: Chloe (1 Cor 1:11), Lydia (Acts 16:40), mother of John Mark (Acts 12:12), Nympha (Col 4:15), Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:3-5; 1 Cor 16:19), Philemon, Apphia, and Archippus (Philemon 1-2), and perhaps Stephana (1 Cor 16:15, 17) [from p. 3, from his wife Aida Besancon Spencer’s study].
Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:32 pm By Scot McKnight
Race. If you are tempted to move to another post or website because of that first word, you need this post. I once convinced Oxford University Press to send me six copies of J. Kameron Carter’s powerful book Race: A Theological Account. I asked a variety of scholars to review the book chapter by chapter, and the conversation sputtered. I have on other occasions brought up issues around race and more often than not the conversation goes nowhere.
I bring up John Piper, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, Mark Driscoll, Rick Warren, Andy Stanley … kaboom! The pageviews shoot off the chart.
I bring up women in ministry, homosexuality, the election or politics, kaboom!
I contend diversity in the church is not a social justice issue; it is a gospel issue. The gospel is for all, which means your local church is for all sorts, which means the lack of diversity in a local church reveals a lack of embodying the reality of the gospel.
When all of us get to heaven there will be no boundaries and ethnic divisions and gender divisions and racial divisions. We best prepare for heaven by living heaven now or we may discover we don’t want the real heaven when it confronts us. The rhetorical function of heaven in the Bible is to transform us for here and now not to get us to coast in comfort until we die or until the Parousia.
Yes, to be sure, there is the discomfort we feel in talking about race and I have heard people say “I read the posts but I’m afraid I might say something wrong so I don’t comment.” I get that. The PC policy makers do at times lurk in order to pounce on offenders. Honesty is a better tack than silence for silence confirms the status quo.
But here’s where we are going today. Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith, by Mae Elise Cannon, Lisa Sharon Harper, Troy Jackson, and Soong-Chan Rah — yep, four authors connected to magazines like Sojourners, who press white Republican evangelicalism hard, and … yet… yet… isn’t there something here for all of us to acknowledge? Something we need to learn? Something we need turn from and something that needs to spur us into a whole new kind of church-shaping vitality: a church shaped by the fullness of the people of God instead of one shaped by our preferred demographic.
What would your church look like — demographically — if every church goer within one mile of your home had to attend a church next door to your home? Would it look like the church you attend or the demographics of your neighborhood?
There are other issues here, of course, but this book has a powerful message in a simple format:
Examine principal societal sins, acknowledge those sins for what they are — sins, sometimes and more often than that, heinous sins, to see a theology that puts the record straight, and to confess our sins by asking God, the church and those against whom we have sinned to forgive us our sins.
What are those societal sins?
1. Sins against God’s Creation
2. Sins against Indigenous People
3. Sins against African Americans and People of Color
4. Sins against Women
5. Sins against the LGBTQ Community
6. Sins against Immigrants
7. Sins against Jews and Muslims
Each chapter is clear, sensitive, theological, and truth-telling to the core. Each offers a prayer of confession and a petition for forgiveness. We need each chapter. I’m grateful for this book. It makes me want to see the church live up to its calling to be a church for all.
The book’s foreword is from Mark Labberton, President of Fuller, and Jim Wallis, Sojourners president.
Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:33 pm By Scot McKnight
Once again, as I look over our Meanderings, a big thanks to Kris who scouts out more from the internet than do I.
A bright Saturday morning image to get us going. Gotta love that memory of Olivia Newton John and John Travolta kicking it up. One of my favorite cult classics.
Wolfhart Pannenberg has often been called the greatest theologian of the second half of the 20th century. With his death Friday, the world has lost a brilliant interpreter of Christianity, and I have lost the mentor who molded me as a scholar, theologian, and person.
In the 1950s, when Pannenberg was a doctoral student in Heidelberg, Karl Barth dominated the theological stage. In order to counteract Barth’s overemphasis on salvation history (Heilsgeschichte), Pannenberg redefined revelation as “universal history” (Universalgeschichte). A few years later he published a major Christology (Jesus—God and Man) that established him as the world’s leading defender of “theology from below.”
Over the next 30 years, Pannenberg extended this program to philosophy, the religion/science debate, the dialogue across the world religions, and to every corner of theology. He had the most encyclopedic mind I have ever encountered. You need only to read around a bit in his multi-volume Basic Questions in Theology to be stunned by the range and depth of his scholarship. John Cobb once quipped, “I saw that Pannenberg was able to encompass the entire range of knowledge within his own mind. Realizing that I could never match this achievement, I decided it would take a lifetime of working with my doctoral students to cover as many topics.”
For 20 years, people have been assuming that fat was the enemy because it produced cholesterol, which was blocking arteries. That’s not quite right.
I could talk about this all day long, because I think it highlights some very important things in terms of how we sometimes misinterpret science, or at least exaggerate it.
It was in the late ’70s – in fact, there was a Senate commission, Senator McGovern, who actually looked at this issue and found that people who had very high levels of cholesterol tended to die early of heart disease. And there was also other studies that showed if you ate a diet high in fat, it raised your cholesterol. But those were two different studies. And they got really, really linked, not only by the Senate, but also in the scientific community and then by everybody else.
And what happened over the last 30 years, it got codified. It became the way that we eat low fat in this country. And nothing changed. In fact, things got worse. Cardiovascular disease remains the biggest killer of men and women. Diabetes rates are higher than ever before. Childhood obesity. So it didn’t work. And I think that’s what sort of prompted all this analysis.
I think there’s two issues here. One is that fat doesn’t get a free pass here. There’s still some problems with it. It still raises cholesterol levels. That is associated with heart disease. The problem is that what we replaced fat with was sugar. And sugar may be more problematic, in some ways, for someone who’s worried about heart disease than fat.
If I put a double cheeseburger here and a big sugary drink and I asked anybody, which of these two things is worse for your heart, even a child would probably say the cheeseburger. And almost always they would be wrong. It’s the sugary drink that gets converted into that bad cholesterol in our body.
Jonnelle Marte, debit vs. credit cards, and the wisdom of millennials:
Millennials hate carrying cash, but when it comes to using plastic, they don’t have much of a thing for credit either. Their preferred way to pay: debit. More than 60 percent of consumers ages 18 to 29 say they do not have a credit card, according to a study released Monday by Bankrate.com. That is almost double the share of adults over the age of 30 who said they don’t have credit cards. The phone survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, polled 1,161 consumers in late July and early August. Younger consumers prefer debit cards because they have many of the same benefits over hard cash as credit — they eliminate the need for a trip to the ATM and can quickly be replaced if a wallet is stolen. But mostly, young people like debit cards because they dislike debt, says Jeanine Skowronski, a credit card analyst for Bankrate.com. Already burdened by student loans and burned during the recession, many millennials may be wary of taking on more debt, she says. “They are really worried about getting a credit card, racking up a bill they can’t pay,” Skowronski says.
Joseph Rock, PsyD, did not take part in the study but is a psychologist at Cleveland Clinic. He says when we’re uncomfortable we turn to things that will ease that anxiety — like comfort food.
“It doesn’t work to fix anything, but at least it makes us feel better for a second,” says Dr. Rock. “When we’re feeling uncomfortable we’re not thinking about what’s going to happen in a month. We’re thinking about ‘I’m feeling crummy today and I want that to change.’”
If you prefer red wine to white, you’re not alone.
All but three states—Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa—buy more burgundy than white, according to data compiled by online wine retailer Naked Wines. North Carolina, Mississippi, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are particularly fond of red varietals—the four buy red wine nearly 60 percent of the time, and white wine only 30 percent of the time. (The remaining roughly 10 percent account for sparkling and rose purchases).
In a follow-up on previous research, University of Birmingham immunologists claim that you really can be sick with grief. This emotionally-driven sickness gets worse the older you are, the researchers reported in a recent Immunity & Aging study, and is probably caused by an increase in stress hormones.
Both young and old study subjects who’d experienced the loss of a loved one recently reported symptoms of stress and depression, showing higher marks than their non-grieving counterparts. But though the young subjects (of an average age of 32) showed no changes in their immune systems, older grievers (average age 72) had weakened immune functions.
During the weeks after an emotional loss, the researchers report, people can suffer from a reduced number of white blood cells called neutrophils, which are needed to fight infection. They now believe that this loss may be related to a fluctuation in stress hormones, which may be more pronounced in older individuals.
Two stunning caryatid statues have been unearthed holding up the entrance to the biggest ancient tomb ever found in Greece, archaeologists said.
The two female figures in long-sleeved tunics were found standing guard at the opening to the mysterious Alexander The Great-era tomb near Amphipolis in the Macedonia region of northern Greece.
“The left arm of one and the right arm of the other are raised in a symbolic gesture to refuse entry to the tomb,” a statement from the culture ministry said Saturday.
Speculation is mounting that the tomb, which dates from Alexander’s lifetime (356 to 323 B.C.), may be untouched, with its treasures intact.
Sitting for eight or more hours a day can be deadly.
That fact has been hammered home in study after study showing thenegative health effects — including heart disease, poor circulation and joint pain — associated with being parked on your behind for most of the day. The only sure way to prevent those problems, researchers have said, is to sit far less.
But there is growing evidence that there are ways to reverse the damage without necessarily committing to being on your feet for eight or more hours a day.
A new study by researchers at Indiana University published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise suggests that the impaired blood flow in leg arteries can actually be reversed by breaking up your sitting regimen with five-minute walking breaks.
Sitting can cause blood to pool in the legs and prevent it from effectively flowing to the heart — a precursor to cardiovascular problems. After just one hour of sitting, normal blood flow became impaired by as much as 50 percent, the study found.
But the men who walked for five minutes on a treadmill for each hour they sat didn’t see that decline.
WASHINGTON — Earth’s protective ozone layer is beginning to recover, largely because of the phase-out since the 1980s of certain chemicals used in refrigerants and aerosol cans, a U.N. scientific panel reported Wednesday in a rare piece of good news about the health of the planet.
Scientists said the development demonstrates that when the world comes together, it can counteract a brewing ecological crisis.
For the first time in 35 years, scientists were able to confirm a statistically significant and sustained increase in stratospheric ozone, which shields the planet from solar radiation that causes skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.
From 2000 to 2013, ozone levels climbed 4 percent in the key mid-northern latitudes at about 30 miles up, said NASA scientist Paul A. Newman. He co-chaired the every-four-years ozone assessment by 300 scientists, released at the United Nations.
“It’s a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together,” said chemist Mario Molina. In 1974, Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland wrote a scientific study forecasting the ozone depletion problem. They won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work.
Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:35 pm By Scot McKnight
Occasionally I need to remind readers of this blog that I include topics, angles, points of view that are not my own, without comment, and often with a question — designed to create civil conversation. At times, far less often, I opine but one cannot infer from the presence of a topic what I necessarily think or believe. And this regular set of links on Weekly Meanderings is a good example.
Will shifts in sexual ethics increase attention to the gospel and attraction to the church? Alexander Griswold says No:
By now, we’ve all heard the refrain that U.S. churches need liberalize their teachings on sexuality and homosexuality or rapidly decline. The logic behind the argument is simple: more and more Americans are embracing homosexuality and same-sex marriage, including growing numbers of religious Millennials. So long as churches remain the face of opposition to gay marriage, those churches will shrink into irrelevancy when gay marriage (inevitably, we are told) becomes a settled political issue.
These arguments often see church acceptance of homosexuality as a carrot as well as a stick. It isn’t so much that denouncing homosexuality will drive people away from church, but that embracing it will also lead people into church. LGBT individuals and their supporters, many of whom hold a dim view of religion after a decades-long culture war, will reconsider church if denominations remove their restrictions on gay marriage and ordination.
But a number of Christian denominations have already taken significant steps towards liberalizing their stances on homosexuality and marriage, and the evidence so far seems to indicate that affirming homosexuality is hardly a cure for membership woes. On the contrary, every major American church that has taken steps towards liberalization of sexual issues has seen a steep decline in membership.
In just 80 years, some 2,000 square miles of its coastal landscape have turned to open water, wiping places off maps, bringing the Gulf of Mexico to the back door of New Orleans and posing a lethal threat to an energy and shipping corridor vital to the nation’s economy.
And it’s going to get worse, even quicker.
Scientists now say one of the greatest environmental and economic disasters in the nation’s history is rushing toward a catastrophic conclusion over the next 50 years, so far unabated and largely unnoticed.
At the current rates that the sea is rising and land is sinking, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists say by 2100 the Gulf of Mexico could rise as much as 4.3 feet across this landscape, which has an average elevation of about three feet. If that happens, everything outside the protective levees — most of Southeast Louisiana — would be underwater.
Mark David Chapman, murderer of John Lennon, on his faith in Christ and his ministry.
(RNS) The man who murdered John Lennon wants only one thing now — to tell others about Jesus.
Mark David Chapman, 59, told parole examiners he was no longer the man who sought notoriety through killing the Beatles rock star in 1980.
Now, he said, he’s sorry, “forgiven by God” and eager to spend his days — in prison or out — ministering to others.
Parents, students and teachers often argue, with little evidence, about whether U.S. high schools begin too early in the morning. In the past three years, however, scientific studies have piled up, and they all lead to the same conclusion: a later start time improves learning. And the later the start, the better.
Biological research shows that circadian rhythms shift during the teen years, pushing boys and girls to stay up later at night and sleep later into the morning. The phase shift, driven by a change in melatonin in the brain, begins around age 13, gets stronger by ages 15 and 16, and peaks at ages 17, 18 or 19.
Does that affect learning? It does, according to Kyla Wahlstrom, director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota. She published a large study in February that tracked more than 9,000 students in eight public high schools in Minnesota, Colorado and Wyoming. After one semester, when school began at 8:35 a.m. or later, grades earned in math, English, science and social studies typically rose a quarter step—for example, up halfway from B to B+….
Studies also show that common arguments against later start times ring hollow. In hundreds of districts that have made the change, students do not have a harder time fitting in after-school activities such as sports or in keeping part-time jobs. “Once these school districts change, they don’t want to go back,” Wahlstrom says.
Even “the bus issue” can work out for everyone. Many districts bus kids to high school first, then rerun the routes for the elementary schools. Flipping the order would bring high schoolers to class later and benefit their little sisters and brothers; other studies show that young children are more awake and more ready to learn earlier in the morning.
Using technology in the classroom can produce fabulous results, but for note-taking, it may pay to keep it old-school and stick with pen and paper.
Students who take longhand notes appear to process information more deeply than those who take notes on a laptop, according to a studypublished this year in Psychological Science. Using the newfangled method generally produces more raw notes, researchers say in the study, “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard,” which was published in April. (The study was resurfaced this week by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, as students return to school.)
But students using laptops tend to do worse than longhand note-takers when answering conceptual questions about the material.
Researchers from Princeton and UCLA conducted several experiments with college students watching TED Talks and other video lectures. In one, longhand note takers wrote down fewer words than those typing on laptops. But the two groups performed about the same when answering factual questions about the lecture material, and students who wrote longhand did much better than laptop note takers on conceptual questions.
What gives? Students using laptops tended to write what they heard verbatim rather than processing the information; that resulted in a sort of “shallower” learning, the researchers said.
If you remember the great baseball player, Dick Allen, here’s his story.
Greece (MNN) — Even though Greece has a long, rich history connected to the early Church, things haven’t exactly been easy for followers of Christ there.
In 1938, laws restricting freedom of religion were passed in Greece and have never been repealed. Unchallenged, the Greek Orthodox Church grew dominant (95% national affiliation). Proselytizing is illegal unless it is an attempt to convert a person to Greek Orthodoxy…..
AMG’s Fotis Romeos first noted a proposal in his July report. Romeos co-founded the CosmoVision Center on the outskirts of Athens, Greece. He works with AMG’s Eastern European ministries and serves as the Greek representative at the European Evangelical Alliance and the general secretary of the Greek Evangelical Alliance.
Romeos wrote, “We are facing a new law, which is proposed by the Ministry of Religion in Greece regarding the legal status of evangelical churches in Greece. We have been literally fighting for many years for such a law and now the time arrived.”
Inspiration is fleeting and great ideas need to be captured before they vanish back into the ether. When it comes to getting ideas down quickly, old-fashioned pen and paper still wins over digital technology, but a new collaboration between notebookmaker Moleskine and ‘smartpen’ companyLivescribe has combined the pleasures of using pen and paper with the advantages (think saving and emailing your notes) of digital technology.
There is a popular and enduring image of what a “gamer” looks like: mostly male, mostly juvenile, mostly white. That image is false, and has been for a long time now.
According to a survey from the Entertainment Software Association, there are significantly more adult women playing video games than adolescent males—just like there were last year. Why does this matter? Because the “gamer culture” propagated by industry marketing and perpetuated elsewhere does not reflect reality, and it has created an environment that is unwelcoming to anyone who does not fit this “norm.” As Kill Screennotes, the status quo that is pushed out into the world is one that caters to men, both teenage and adult. It shows in industry events and in the places where games are made. It shows in the ways games are marketed to us. It might even show in the comments section beneath this article.
Here’s the exact breakdown: Of the 59 percent of Americans who play video games, 36 percent are women aged 18 or older. Boys 18 or younger, whom are highly sought after by marketers, only make up 17 percent of the gaming population in the U.S. When not broken down by age, the split between genders is almost even: 48 percent of American gamers are female, while 52 percent are male.
It was not easy to choose, but of these pictures of the world’s most magnificent bookstores, I’d have to choose the one on Santorini. How did they manage not to include Blackwell’s in Oxford?
I also remember, and this is just me I’m talking about, being impressed by Barack Obama who was running for president at the time. I don’t know if you and I talked about him on that occasion. But at the time, I sometimes thought that he looked like he had what this country needed.
So that’s my first question, it’s a lot of ground to cover but how do you feel things have worked out since then, both with the economy and with this president? That was a huge turning point, that moment in 2008, and my own feeling is that we didn’t turn.
No, the thing is he posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency, a national security presidency. The torturers go free. The Wall Street executives go free. The war crimes in the Middle East, especially now in Gaza, the war criminals go free. And yet, you know, he acted as if he was both a progressive and as if he was concerned about the issues of serious injustice and inequality and it turned out that he’s just another neoliberal centrist with a smile and with a nice rhetorical flair. And that’s a very sad moment in the history of the nation because we are—we’re an empire in decline. Our culture is in increasing decay. Our school systems are in deep trouble. Our political system is dysfunctional. Our leaders are more and more bought off with legalized bribery and normalized corruption in Congress and too much of our civil life. You would think that we needed somebody—a Lincoln-like figure who could revive some democratic spirit and democratic possibility….
And we ended up with a brown-faced Clinton. Another opportunist. Another neoliberal opportunist. It’s like, “Oh, no, don’t tell me that!” I tell you this, because I got hit hard years ago, but everywhere I go now, it’s “Brother West, I see what you were saying. Brother West, you were right. Your language was harsh and it was difficult to take, but you turned out to be absolutely right.” And, of course with Ferguson, you get it reconfirmed even among the people within his own circle now, you see. It’s a sad thing. It’s like you’re looking for John Coltrane and you get Kenny G in brown skin.
So many of us long for authentic community – a place to nurture Christian faith, intellectually, spiritually, and socially. Amid the complexities of life and our disappointments with self, others, and the church, we often venture to events, longing for God’s healing touch in Scripture, community, prayer, and worship. For those wearied by their journey, CBE’s conference in Colombia was indeed a place of renewal, not only through the loving and wise Christian community that welcomed us but also through the people and place of Medellín, a city filled with warm smiles and flowering trees.
Nestled in a valley of perpetual spring, the Fundación Universitaria Seminario Bíblico de Colombia (FUSBC) enjoys an urban setting surrounded by majestic peaks. Blessed by such beauty, the seminary community is filled with many graces and holds together two essential priorities: intellectual engagement and vibrant Christian community. The school has for its president an extraordinary leader, Elizabeth Sendek, and faculty like Gustavo Karakey, Milton Acosta, and more. CBE staff partnered joyfully with FUSBC staff in hosting our first conference in South America, which was also our first conference in Spanish. While FUSBC chose the theme, “Male and Female in Christ: Toward a Biblical View of Christian Identity and Ministry,” speakers, and worship leaders, CBE promoted the event and published resources in Spanish and English.
The result was a three-day conference filled with authentic encounters with biblical educators, activists, students and church leaders – all pressing deeper into God’s voice on Christian identity as male and female. My opening lecture offered a theological context for Christian identity, surveying male and female as created in God’s image, commissioned with authority in the garden (Gen. 1:26-28), an event repeated in Christ’s commission of the disciples, male and female – giving them spiritual authority to retain or forgive sins (John 20:21-23).
Aída Besançon Spencer considered Paul’s call for women’s silence in 1 Timothy 2:11: did it prohibit or prepare women for teaching? She also led a workshop open to any question on gender and Scripture. Bill Spencer evaluated views of the Trinity as they impact the leadership of women. Milton Acosta explored Jael within the patriarchal, honor-shame culture of ancient Israel. A panel on marriage and singlehood considered the joys and disappointments of relationships.
The challenges of abuse proved a conference-wide theme as Carolina Ocampo assessed gender and law in Latin America, and Cesar Villanueva considered gender-based violence in South American context. Significantly, NGO leaders, pastors, and lawyers met for lunch and discussed the challenges of abuse in their context for two hours. A leading South American theologian joined us and after listening intently, he said: “As a theologian, I read Scripture and make decisions as to what is correct biblically. I work alone, without feedback such as yours. I will always remember your stories. Thank you!”
Lively conversations in Spanish, English, and French erupted throughout the conference during meals and at breaks. Worship was no less engaging and was led mainly in Spanish by recording artists well known among Colombian Christians. Like finely-tuned instruments, each person’s insights and ministry experiences contributed to this South American cantata celebrating Christian identity in Christ, male and female.
Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:46 pm By Scot McKnight
Our week in Oxford included a number of connections to CS Lewis, including a fine talk by Alister McGrath who quoted (as he is wont to do) Lewis a number of times. But the highlight was a stroll Kris and I took on the grounds of Magdalen College on Addison’s trail, where Tolkien and Dyson convinced Lewis of the truth of Christianity.
Sadly, Americans rarely eat together anymore. In fact, the average American eats one in every five meals in her car, one in four Americans eats at least onefast food meal every single day, and the majority of American families report eating a single meal together less than five days a week. It’s a pity that so many Americans are missing out on what could be meaningful time with their loved ones, but it’s even more than that. Not eating together also has quantifiably negative effects both physically and psychologically.
Just in case you want to know how a full-time blogger works, Brett at The Art of Manliness illustrates how it is done. Here’s a clip:
Monday – Friday: 12PM – 6:00 PM; 9:30PM – 11PM
Since we work from home and for ourselves, we have the luxury of not working a standard 9-5 shift. When we thought about our family and our own desires, these unusual hours worked the best for us.
I wake up around 7 am. Mornings are for spending time with the kiddos, taking care of errands and chores, and going to the gym (one hour, 5X a week). At 12PM Gus and Scout get dropped off at Nana’s house, who lives just down the street from us.
My workday starts off with a quick daily meeting with Kate. We go over the editorial calendar, discuss the emails sitting in our various inboxes, discuss any open loops, and then get to work, generally within 15-20 minutes. I try to do most of my creative work first thing during the workday. About an hour before it’s time to knock off and pick-up the kids, I’ll answer email and take care of what we call around here “doodads.” After the kids go to bed, the “nightshift” begins and I’ll tackle a few more doodads before doing some reading and hitting the hay at about 11:30. (I’ll then usually wake up 1-2 times during the night, depending on Scout’s whims for the evening, who is still working on getting her sleeping-through-the-night act together. Come on baby! Get it together!).
Fridays are set aside for phone calls and podcast interviews for me, and for writing and researching for the rest of our team. We try not to publish anything too intense on Fridays, besides the weekly Huckberry giveaway and a video.
A splendid meandering through the publishing industry in the last four decades by Phil Yancey:
Frankly, I’m glad I’m as old as I am. It’s been fun living through publishing’s golden age. I’ll happily stick with the “deep reading” experience. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than browsing through the books in my office. They’re my friends—marked up, dog-eared, highlighted, a kind of spiritual and intellectual journal—in a way that my Kindle reader will never be.
(CNN) — Ever feel like you’re losing the cell phone battle with your teenager? I did, too. But I’m about to share a genius move with you that will help you win it again.
When we first gave our daughters (now 13 and 15) cell phones for “emergencies,” we made them sign a contract, monitored every text and restricted where and when they could use their phones. In less than a year, we lost control of the situation.
There is the search activity for starters, and then the Snapchat stories, Vines, Instagram posts, Facebook messages, Ask.fm questions and Twitter feeds. There is the stunning reality that the average teen sends between 50 to 100 texts a day — some as many as 300 — and 70% of themadmit hiding their online behavior from parents.
Add to this that 84% of teenagers sleep with, next to or on top of their cell phones, according to a Pew Research Internet Study, and we get into the realm of health concerns. We may not be able to monitor our kids every online move, but this we could do something about. And here comes the genius move:
We recently adopted a “check in at tuck in” rule at our house, an idea I stole from a parenting expert. It is simple, and you must try it. At bedtime, when you “tuck in” your kids for the night, they must “check in” their phone for charging with you.
Then the strangest thing happened. At the age of 38, I had worked as the Teaching Pastor at two of the largest churches in the country and I had, indeed, planted my own church just as planned. Then at the time my “ministry career” should have come into its own, I elected to leave church work to enter the marketplace. 25 months ago I stepped down as a pastor to launch Rebel Pilgrim Productions, a full service film, TV, web media and stage production company. (It’s a long story as to how I got here.)
THAT CALL OF MY YOUTH IS STILL PRESENT THOUGH. I AM CALLED TO PASTOR, PREACH AND HELP LEAD THE CHURCH…BUT NO LONGER AS PAID STAFF.
And guess what I’ve learned? The marketplace needs the Church. I don’t mean that in some sort of spiritual or salvific way. I mean it in a business sense. For as much as the business world has to teach the church, the church has to teach the marketplace. Over the next several weeks I will write about the lessons I learned within vocational ministry that have served me as an entrepreneur. For the purposes of this introduction to the topic, let’s just lead with what may be most obvious – mission.
Women and science, brought home to me again this week in Oxford at the BioLogos event where one of the lead scientists is RJS:
How do we get more women involved in science? This is an important and complex topic, but to some, it seems like an unnecessary question. They point to equal treatment under law and policies against discrimination. The opportunities are there, it’s just up to women to take them!
One would hope that Kenny obtained some decent data to support such a claim. But, unfortunately, she didn’t offer data worth supporting. Citing a single psychologist, Dr. Gijsbert Stoet, who (a) she never directly spoke to and (b) has distanced himself from the article, Kenny asserted a hodgepodge of strange proclamations on women’s affinities that tend to sway them away from “boring” science….
Others were equally unimpressed by the article.
Dr. Katherine (Katie) Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist at Melbourne University and has written for Slate, Time, and elsewhere. She told me, “Gender-based socialization, and messages LIKE THIS ARTICLE [her emphasis] that tell girls that science is an unnatural thing for them to do, are incredibly pervasive in our culture. If you want to discuss inherent differences between men’s and women’s brains, first remove all stereotypes, discrimination (subtle or explicit), biased parental expectations, media messages, pressure from teachers, and long-standing gender-based cultural norms, and then tell me about whatever differences you can find, if any.”
Last updated on: October 11, 2023 at 8:47 am By Scot McKnight
Mention former President Jimmy Carter and one is likely to get a response, and the most common is perhaps that Carter became more significant after his time at the White House that during his presidency. He is the only President in American history who used his presidency as a stepping stone to a more expansive career. Future historians may well demonstrate that Carter’s take on a number of issues — not least his routine questioning of our policies (one is tempted to write policings) and actions in the Middle East — was the wiser course. But what is perhaps most notable about President Carter is his (more or less) consistent application of his understanding of the Christian faith to public policy.
This is the theme of Randall Balmer, Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter (NY: Basic, 2014). Balmer combines a narrative of Carter’s life — from the obscure farms of southwest Georgia, to the US Naval Academy, back to Plains Georgia, the decision to get involved in politics, governor of Georgia and then the 39th President of the USA — with a study of how Carter’s faith shaped his public work. Following his presidency his advocacy of justice and peace and education, his defense of women’s rights, the Nobel Peace Prize, and his routine work in Habitat for Humanity. I limit myself to a few observations about Carter as presented in Balmer’s splendid new book, speckled as it is with fantastic vocabulary:
First, Carter’s faith is real and it has been a constant factor in his life. Yes, he had a conversion/rededication experience through his sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, but from his early 40s on Jimmy Carter’s faith shaped his life substantively. Jimmy Carter’s “ministry” has been as a Sunday School teacher, both in Plains (where I think he still teaches in his 90s) and in Washington DC. Carter immediately saw trouble in the conservative takeover of the SBC and opposed many of its moves, not least its emphasis on the authority of pastors and its opposition to women in ministry. Carter believes firmly in the priesthood of all believers and that includes letting women do what God calls women to do.
Second, Balmer’s push is to see Carter’s own integration of faith and politics as progressive evangelicalism. He’s right at one level: Carter’s themes are the historic themes of American Christian progressives: from William Jennings Bryan on, including the Christian activism of such notables as Finney and Mark Hatfield. Carter was concerned with human rights, family, education, care for the poor, justice, natural resources, less imperialism, and peace-making negotiations in patience. The SBC was not part of the evangelical movement until the Reagan years and since then has been more than a substantive influence, so for me Carter’s progressivism mirrors the progressivism of the 19th Century and early 20th Century evangelicals more than the mid Century evangelicals we know today. I would call Carter a progressive (Southern) Baptist. One could of course contend the conservative evangelical movement since the 80s as a defection of the historic progressive impulse of evangelicals.
Third, which leads to an important theme in Balmer’s study, and one that deserves careful reading: Jimmy Carter was the favorite of American evangelicals in the election of 1976 but, owing to a variety of shifts and political moves on the part of evangelical activists, fell out of favor and, in effect, became a moderate or progressive Southern Baptist more than a progressive evangelical. Here’s the point: evangelicalism coagulated around conservative political platform — at the lead of Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell — in the late 1970s that led to the evangelical support of Ronald Reagan and the vilification (and worse) of Carter and his faith. What some of these leaders said about Carter’s faith was disgraceful and purposefully deceitful. Carter’s progressive Christian postures had a noble evangelical heritage. The conservatives wiped much of the evangelical progressive platform off the docket.
Fourth, Balmer details in this book a theme I’ve read in a number of his works that needs a constant reminder for those who’d like to revise the history. It’s simple: abortion did not precipitate the Moral Majority and the conservative evangelical platform. Segregation/integration in Christian school education did. The IRS in the early 70s began to apply pressure on Bob Jones University for its discriminatory policies and that governmental action led to a gradual but powerful congealing of forces around — mark this down — not the right to segregate but the invasion of religious freedom. That is, conservative evangelicals defended the right of a Christian school to establish its own beliefs and policies and the government had no right to pry into a religious school’s ways. I distinctly remember this debate creating concerns among evangelicals. It was not until about 1978 that abortion became the rallying cry of the pro-Republican evangelicals. So it was not Roe v. Wade but Green v. Connally that galvanzied evangelicals. Yes, to be sure, opposition to abortion then became a central platform, which Reagan endorsed (and then did barely a thing about it and this theme is also found in Balmer’s book and raises the specter that the conservative evangelical caucus was more or less used).
Fifth, the conservative evangelical activist impulse was a juggernaut that removed Carter from office and established what James Davison Hunter called the culture wars. Carter was not the politician that Reagan was; not only did his interview in Playboy continue to haunt Carter, but he had enough problems in the midst of his presidency (inflation, the Iran problem) and Teddy Kennedy’s opposition to Carter in the Democratic nomination all diminished Carter’s chances. On top of this Carter was one of those politicians who said his personal view was against abortion but would support the law — I find this policy deeply inconsistent for the Christian. The Christian’s engagement in public emerges from faith and discipleship regardless of what the law says.
Sixth, Randy Balmer has a gift at skewering by description, without label or accusation, and it is left to the reader to see what he’s doing. He does this to Carter in his posturing toward segregationists in order to be elected Governor and then reversing some of those themes once Governor; in Jerry Falwell and in Billy Graham, both of whom were less than honest in some of the communications about whom they would (or would not) support.
Seventh, the epilogue of Balmer’s book takes a twist I didn’t care for but I think I know what he’s getting at, and after a conversation and re-reading it, I think I know what he’s saying. I suspect what Balmer means by “works righteousness” has nothing to do with his standing before God but instead comes from another angle. That is, Carter’s failure to win a second term in office spurred the man to a passionate life of service — that is his works that vindicates his political progressive theories. Carter’s failure to win a second term created a double-down desire to work at the very issues that mattered most to him. If I am right, Balmer is using “works righteousness” as a variant on “stepping stone,” and if he is, then Balmer nails it. No other president has been more of a public servant than Jimmy Carter.
Michael Bird says he likes to open his Romans class each year with a special question:
Paul dictated the message of Romans; who actually wrote the message down?
After the class settles on Tertius, he asks another:
Who delivered Romans? Who was Paul’s envoy?
After receiving confused faces and odd looks, he brings his students to Romans 16. Drawing their attention to Phoebe and discussing the role of letter carriers in antiquity, Bird asks yet another question:
If the Romans had questions about the contents of the letter, who would be the first person they would ask?
Yes, Phoebe. In other words a woman would have been the one to teach Romans to the Church of Rome.
This thought-provoking exchange launches a just-as-thought-provoking discussion on gender equality and ministry in Bourgeois Babes, Bossy Wives, and Bobby Haircuts. In it Bird offers an engaging, incisive perspective on biblical gender equality and the egalitarian view.
He believes this seemingly minor detail of Romans is actually a major one—for it reveals three important aspects of Paul’s view of women in ministry: they were his co-workers; he didn’t mind their speaking in churches; and he encouraged them to teach.
Last updated on: May 27, 2014 at 11:54 am By Scot McKnight
A few weeks ago, I spoke at an interdenominational event called the Festival of Young Preachers. It was an event for young adults across the region interested in preaching. It was fascinating to see so many different people from different traditions trying to help younger people catch a vision for what this calling is, and why it matters.
Over the past few years, one of the surprising trends has been watching seminaries across the country slowly start to lose incoming students. What has been even more surprising is that the majority of students who are enrolling aren’t getting their MDiv to serve a local church. They are paying large amounts of tuition (sometimes taking on excess amounts of student debt) to get a seminary degree in order to work at a non-profit ministry or run some kind of parachurch organization.
I think much of this impulse is good. I am glad that people have learned that God is up to more than just within the four walls of our church buildings. But I have a couple of concerns (and after being at the Festival of Young Preachers I realize I am not the only one).
In their book Leap of Faith, Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost make the point that this is really the fruit of something that happened decades earlier. They call it the Great Divorce, but it was the invention of the Parachurch movement. Para just means alongside, or along-with, and so ideally any parachurch is deeply connected with an actual church or body of churches. But over the past few decades, churches have been willing to farm out more and more of what has historically been the Church’s job, and parachurch organizations are maturing, standing on their own, and often becoming entirely indigenous from actual communities of faith.
This isn’t just my observation. A few years ago, Rick Warren was asked why Pastors and Churches were not as influential as they had been in years past.
Here is what he said:
My generation fell in love with the parachurch. My generation and the generation before me built all the great parachurch organizations: Focus on the Family, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Wycliffe, Campus Crusade, InterVarsity, Young Life, Youth for Christ, and so on. The reason why the church doesn’t have greater impact is because the smartest brains and the most money have gone outside the church. If you go to a missions conference at any Christian college, go out and look. There won’t be a single local church organization. It will all be parachurch—100 percent.
That may seem incidental, but I believe it is one of the key reasons why the bench is getting shallower and shallower in local church ministry. We have created a system of missions without churches and churches without missions.
In my experience people of my generation have started to see Church as a parasite of society and not a means of contributing God’s grace to it. Every time I fly, somewhere around cruising altitude my seatmate turns to me and asks something like, “So…what do you do?” When I tell them I am a preacher, it is fascinating to see how different the responses are. Since they are now strapped in a large metal tube next to me for the next hour or two, they have to be polite, but if they are around my age (early 30’s) or below, they almost always ask me the same form of the same question, “Why?”
I have actually developed something of an elevator pitch for this question. I normally turn to them and say something like, “I think in the 70’s and 80’s we looked back on our churches and asked ‘How could we have been so racist?’ I think in the 90’s we started looking back and asking ‘How could we have been so patriarchal?’ and today I think we are starting to look back and ask “How could we have been so selfish?’
For far too long churches have invested so much of their resources into their own memberships and institutions, and I believe that churches all over the country and world are starting to wake up to the implications of what we believe.
From a historical perspective, it is good news for the world that Christians believe in Jesus. Christians and churches have been a compelling force for good in the world, we have made huge mistakes and done tragic things (you have one Crusade, and suddenly that’s all that everyone wants to talk about), but Christian history is actually filled with men and women who have served the world well, and made it a better place as a way of service to God.
That’s why I preach.
I think it is interesting that the final words Jesus gives his disciples is not “Go into all the world and make disciples.” The final words Jesus gives us begin with “Stay”.
Stay in Jerusalem, receive the Holy Spirit, then go into all the world and make disciples. In other words, the best ways to make a difference in your city/county/world is to send out different kinds of people into the world.
One of the greatest tragedies of young people not investing their lives in the local church is something we will not see for a few more decades. That is because we are currently drinking from wells that we did not dig.
The people who have started these non-profits or have tried to serve the world in Gospel ways through their business or parachurch organization are primarily people who have been formed in a local church. They have been taught to care about the world in a way that is in line with the nature of God, and adjust their bottom lines and values accordingly. But when we create a culture that is more in love with the fruit than the tree (and by tree I mean Jesus) we eventually lose both.
I believe there is nothing on earth that can replace the local church, in all her forms and nuances, she is a community of diverse people gathering around Jesus. Nothing can replace that.
Last updated on: May 28, 2014 at 6:43 am By Scot McKnight
My friend, Bob Robinson, has made a good case for seeing the New Calvinists as Neo-Puritans. I don’t think we can know this for sure, but it is indeed possible that on this blog that group was first called the Neo-Reformed, but a commenter said they are not really Reformed since they are mostly Baptists and not officially connected with the Reformed denominations. Then another friend said you can’t call them Neo-Calvinists since that’s Kuyper.
Neo-Puritan is a good moniker, but that might work even better for the likes of J.I. Packer. So maybe “neo-reformed” with a lower case R? Anyway, Bob Robinson makes the case for Neo-Puritan and I have reposted this with his permission.
What do you think? Perhaps you are tempted to say “no labels,” but that is not the reality in which we live. Ordered existence is the instinct for all of us, and this is about making sense not “othering.” Here’s Bob Robinson’s case:
So What’s Wrong with Neo-Calvinism?
by Bob Robinson
In response to the rise of the new Calvinists, we need to make sure we know who we are talking about.
As this new Calvinism has become more prominent, there have also arisen critics. For some in the Old Calvinism camp, the predominance of Baptists (John Piper, D.A. Carson, Albert Mohler) in the New Calvinism has raised questions about the concept of Covenant: the Baptists don’t practice paedobaptism. Also, the New Calvinism holds what they call the “Complimentarian” view of women, while Old Calvinism has moved toward egalitarianism.
The Missional movement, which is largely Arminian, has also criticized the New Calvinism.
Scot McKnight is a former professor of mine at TEDS while I was also studying under one of the key leaders of the New Calvinism, Don Carson. Scot has written some scathing critiques of the New Calvinism’s insistence that the Gospel must be defined primarily by the salvation of individuals.
This brand of Calvinists are a force with which to reckon. But as with any movement, America’s Calvinist revival is a mixed bag from where I sit, there are several troubling trends that must be addressed if this faithful faction hopes to move from a niche Christian cadre to a sustainable and more mainstream movement.
Notice that Merritt called them the young, restless, and reformed orneo-Calvinists.
The young, restless, and reformed refers to the best-selling book written by Collin Hansen, Editorial Director for The Gospel Coalition and is a good identifying tag for this group.
But what are we to make of this identification of them as neo-Calvinists?
Well, that is a misnomer. What Merritt and others are addressing is not Neo-Calvinism, but Neo-Puritanism.
I Know Neo-Calvinism, and that’s not Neo-Calvinism
I think these New Calvinists should not be called “Neo-Calvinists,” but rather “Neo-Puritans.”
“A former student of mine, Bob Robinson, told me a few years back that he had read a careful church historian who thought NeoPuritanism was more accurate. Jamie Smith also pushed back against using the term Reformed for this group; Vince Bacote thinks NeoCalvinist is not fair to Kuyper; Ken Stewart’s book proved to me again the Reformed movement is too big for this new development of mostly Baptist Calvinists.
So there is some protection of terms here and I have now myself landed on NeoPuritan as the heart of this movement. Puritanism is, of course, personal zeal before the Lord for holiness and, also, zeal for reforming church and society according to biblical (and not ecclesiastical) teachings. So I agree, we should probably start using NeoPuritan.”
It seems high-time to make clear the difference between Neo-Calvinism and Neo-Puritanism again.
Why? Because, first, with all the hoopla over the new Calvinism, people need to understand that the terms Calvinist or Reformed are much broader terms than any one particular group within the movement. Second, because with all the notoriety the new Calvinism is getting, especially in contrast to Old Calvinism and Arminianism, we need to make it clear that there is another group of Calvinists, a group that has called themselves Neo-Calvinist for 100 years, and has also gained some prominence in North America recently. This group has similarities to the other group, but there are some marked distinctions.
Now hear me carefully: I don’t use the term Puritan in any derogatory manner. When this term is used, some hear puritanical, with all the caricatures of staunch religious strictness. That is not what I’m referring to.
Neo-Puritanism is a resurgence of the ideas of John Owen, Richard Baxter, and of course Jonathan Edwards (John Piper’s favorite, and now the favorite of many who enjoy Piper’s enthusiastic writings).
Neo-Puritanism appropriately enlarges our view of God’s authority and thus our view of evangelism, worship, and the church’s role in society. It is very concerned with theological issues like the reality of sin and its destruction in both individuals and society, Penal Substitutionary Atonement and Justification as the means for individuals to be saved, and the Five Points (TULIP) of Calvinism.
It is very active in the religious cultural clashes in todayís American society, especially the issues of gay marriage and abortion. Neo-Puritanism sees the answer to societyís woes as starting with personal piety and then it moves out toward society, seeking to influence the culture to live by the pious standards in which Christians live.
But this is not Neo-Calvinism, so for Merritt and others to call it that only confuses matters.
The Emphases of Neo-Calvinism
Abraham Kuyper
Neo-Calvinism dates all the way back to Abraham Kuyper, the 19th Century Dutch cultural leader who famously said, ìThere is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!
Grace restoring natureî is the central insight of Neo-Calvinism. The gospel message for this group is best summarized by four chapters Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation.
This is where neo-Calvinists differentiate themselves from the Neo-Puritans.
They insist that there has not been enough attention paid on the first and last chapter. Acknowledging that the cross is the climax of Redemptionís story, neo-Calvinists insist that focusing just on Fall and Redemption (i.e., personal sin and salvation) neglects the deep implications of the cross to the cosmic story of Godís redemptive plan.
While both Neo-Calvinism and Neo-Puritanism are both concerned about personal piety and cultural influence, they come at these things from different angles. Neo-Puritanism focuses on the sovereignty of God in salvation. Neo-Calvinism focuses on the sovereignty of God overcreation. Their Calvinism has a changing the world comprehensiveness, seeing that the implications of the redemption found in Christ infiltrates all spheres of society so that the ultimate end of God’s plan is the restoration of His creation.
Neo-Puritanism is slanted more towards individual piety and churchly revival, and Neo-Calvinism is slanted more towards corporate activism and cultural renewal.”
I recently asked Ray Pennings to expand on the important distinctives of Neo-Calvinism. He told me,
ìNeo-Calvinism doesnít neatly fit into the emerging ëold ñ newí Calvinist paradigm. Hence, I find the Neo-Puritanism / Neo-Calvinism distinction to be more helpful. There is a profound difference in their approach to the gospel. Neo-Puritans focus on the personal nature of salvation and see the church as primarily a salvation-factory, the workshop of the Holy Spirit in which the Word is sovereignly applied to the hearts of the totally depraved and they are brought into a vital relationship with God. The meaning of this for the rest of life is understood to be secondary and a by-product of a faithful life which has the church and the covenant community as its primary focus.
Neo-Calvinists on the other hand, focus on the church as the recharging station for the people of God and focus on the work of the spirit taking the witness of Godís people into their everyday lives. In practical terms, preaching and church life focuses on equipping the people of God for their comprehensive callings.
Two Streams of Calvinism
Now, I must emphasize that these are two streams of Calvinism, so there is certainly overlap. Tim Keller, who leans toward Neo-Calvinism is one of the leaders of the Neo-Puritan group The Gospel Coalition. While The Gospel Coalition has become much more vocal about a Neo-Puritan agenda, they have also just launcheda new section of its website on Faith and Work (appropriately called “Every Square Inch,” the famous quote from Abraham Kuyper). On the other hand, a prominent neo-Calvinist college ministry conference, Jubilee, not only addresses the complexities of vocation as ministry with speakers like Andy Crouch and Anthony Bradley, but also proclaims the means of salvation from speakers like Tullian Tchividjian (who had a blog at The Gospel Coalitionuntilrecently).
As Ray Pennings told me,
As with any bi-modal contrast, the differences here are highlighted in a way that might obscure the fact that many would reject these labels as reinforcing an either-or approach when a both-and is more appropriate. Nonetheless, any careful observer of the church and cultural life of those associated with these different groups should recognize that this debate has real every-day consequences. The character of preaching, the priorities in personal and church life, and the engagement with society and culture does look different depending on how one approaches these issues, making “Neo-Puritanism” and “Neo-Calvinism” descriptive terms that should be used in a helpful way to understand the contemporary Reformed and Presbyterian scene.”
Click on the image below for a link to a pdf chart that sums up what these nuances look like by providing representative examples.
Jesus Creed
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