Christian Diversity: Is It Good or Bad or Both? In May (2018) Abingdon Press will publish the fourteenth edition of The Handbook of Denominations in the United States edited by yours truly—building on but radically revising previous editions. This reference book has a long and notable history; it has been published in one form or another since the 1930s. It has gone through many changes; this fourteenth edition will signal a return to earlier editions when the volume focused solely... Read more

Is There Really Such a Thing as “Christian Privilege?” Recently, so it is reported, some American academics have discovered a new social injustice: “Christian privilege.” One major American university (secular now but ironically founded by Baptists!) is holding a conference to reveal this newly discovered injustice and expose it as such. Is there really such a thing as “Christian privilege” in the same sense as “male privilege” and “white privilege” and “rich privilege?” That is, does being Christian in America... Read more

Easter Ought to Mean Joy “The Lord is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” This traditional Christian call and response ought to be shouted with great joy! The resurrection of Jesus is good news for all people. It signals the hope (confident expectation) of life conquering death, not by the earthly powers of Spring but by the divine power of God breaking into and overcoming death and decay. According to the gospel Jesus did not merely “come back to life.” His... Read more

Calvinism and Assurance of Salvation (or Not) Here is a very interesting, and I would say “insightful,” message sent to me by a Christian worker with young people (some of who are being drawn into Calvinism by the Young, Restless, Reformed Movement). He gave me permission to post his thoughts here without identifying him. A bit of background for those not already steeped in the Calvinism-Arminianism debate. Calvinists have often claimed that only their theology provides true assurance of salvation—because,... Read more

An Almost Forgotten 20th Century Christian Theologian: Christoph Blumhardt Christoph Blumhardt was born in 1842 and died in 1919. He was a German Lutheran minister raised in a family steeped on “Baden-Württemberg Pietism”—a particular type of German pietism. His father Johann was also a Lutheran minister. Both father and son were famous in Germany, throughout Europe and Christoph in America and throughout the world. Their fame began with a months-long exorcism carried out by Johann. This was unexpected; Johann did... Read more

Does God Speak to People through Dreams? An African (and Personal) Christian Perspective Over the many years I have been teaching Christian theology in four universities (including one secular university where I taught undergraduate courses as a doctoral student but some of the undergraduate courses were of a Christian theological nature) I have encountered many examples of Christians who believed that God somehow or other “spoke” to them through a dream. Most of these people were from what we now... Read more

Torture Again: Why It Is Always Wrong and More I know that I have written about torture here before, so some of you long-time readers of my blog may be bored with the subject. But it has been quite a long time since I wrote about it. And there’s a specific reason for this new post about the subject. I recently read a news wire report about President Trump’s appointment of a woman to lead the American Central Intelligence Agency... Read more

What Is “Original Sin?” And Where Has It Gone (In American Christianity)? I fully realize that I have written about this here before, but many of you, my newer readers, have surely not read my musings about this historic doctrine of the Christian faith—one that seems to me to have largely died away, again, especially in American Christianity. First, an anecdote. I invited a pastor-theologian of a major “mainline” Protestant denomination to speak to my church history/historical theology class about... Read more

Final Thoughts about Church Discipline (for Now) Again, as with the previous post about this subject here (March, 2018), this particular conversation is for evangelical Protestant Christians only. Others can ask questions, of course, but the invitation is to discussion among evangelical Protestants (especially church leaders and influential lay persons) about “church discipline.” As before…please keep responses brief and to the point and avoid revealing any identifying information about individuals or congregations. *Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own... Read more

This blog post is intended ONLY for pastors and lay leaders of evangelical Protestant churches—especially in the U.S. I will invite theologians and biblical scholars to join in the discussion as well (so long as they also consider themselves evangelical Protestants). Please keep your comments relatively brief. This is not an invitation to post sermons or essays here. These are my musings and questions only; they should not be interpreted as speaking or asking for anyone else. I have been... Read more