Someone recently asked me here how many times a day I think about Calvinism. Well, lots. But that’s largely because people contact me by phone, letter, e-mail and in person many times every week, pretty much daily, to ask me questions about Calvinism and Arminianism because of my books, articles, radio interviews, this blog, etc. I guess I have to accept my fate as what Collin Hansen said about me in Young, Restless, Reformed–that I am the (paraphrasing) “go to... Read more

Two nights ago I stayed up late composing a post for this blog about Stanley Hauerwas’ most recent book War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity (Baker Academic, 2011). I ended with some questions about American flags in Christian sanctuaries of worship. Before I was able to post it to this blog, my computer crashed. I lost it completely. Fortunately, I didn’t lost much else that wasn’t already backed up on some other medium. Now... Read more

Recently I talked with a reporter for a major metropolitan daily newspaper about Pentecostalism. He called me after interviewing (he said) many scholars about Pentecostalism. He said that the people most enamored with Pentecostalism were non-Pentecostal religious scholars; none of them would say a bad word about Pentecostalism. He had read my article on the dark side of Pentecostalism in Christian Century and knew I could say some negative things about the movement. (Most of the negative things I have... Read more

Some Thoughts about My Conversation with Michael Horton             I spoke about why I am “Against Calvinism” for about 15 minutes focusing on the goodness of God and how classical, “high Calvinism” is inconsistent with any meaning of “good” and “love” known to us. Then Mike spoke for about 15 minutes focusing on humanity’s depravity and God’s mercy in electing some to salvation. In other words, he also said that God is good even if not in terms of our... Read more

For the past month I’ve been immersed in nineteenth century theology: Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Ritschl, Hodge, Catholic Modernism (Blondel, Loisy, Tyrrell), Troeltsch, Dorner, Bushnell. It isn’t the first time, but this time I’m reading more primary texts and writing about these almost forgotten theologians. One thing I’m finding confirmed is my long-standing opinion that there’s really nothing new in “contemporary theology.” That’s one reason I chose historical theology as my primary field of research and teaching. Every time I hear that... Read more

One commenter has raised a question about my statement that I have no problem with Calvinism in confessionally Reformed circles (churches, denominations, etc.). I made that statement in my previous post about my public conversation with Mike Horton. So, let me clarify that. First, by “no problem with” I don’t mean “agree with!” What I mean is, I don’t object to Reformed folks holding to their Calvinism within their own ecclesiastical settings that are confessionally bound. The same is true... Read more

This past weekend (Saturday, January 28) I engaged in another public dialogue with my favorite Calvinist Michael Horton. While I strongly disagree with some of his characterizations of Arminianism (e.g, “man-centered theology”) he is a gentleman and a scholar who never stoops to using ridicule or insults and always strives to be fair in his descriptions of theologies with which he disagrees. And he never makes it a personal issue; he can express very strong disagreement while remaining friendly. That’s... Read more

The trouble with young men?             This is following up on my earlier posts about so-called (evangelical) complementarianism. Anyone who has followed this blog very long knows how strongly I feel about equality between men and women. I won’t repeat all that. If you have doubts, just go back and read some of my posts on gender issues.             A few commenters here thought that by rejecting complementarianism I was rejecting differences between the sexes (other than physiological). Nothing could... Read more

Types of evangelical theology: replacing the “spectrum” In part one of this series I talked about the limitations of attempting to place every theologian somewhere on a spectrum defined by “right,” “middle,” and “left.” It’s a habit of evangelical theologians that’s hard to break. That spectrum was originally tied to modernity. Theologians to the “left” were those who accommodated to modernity; those to the right rejected modernity; those in the middle worked with some kind of synthesis of moderate adjustment... Read more

Types of evangelical theology: replacing the “spectrum” Part 1 For a long time scholars studying Evangelicalism have used the analogy of a spectrum to describe its theological diversity. The spectrum is always from “right” to “middle” to “left” with “middle” indicating adherence to the “received evangelical doctrinal tradition” with neither accommodation to modern culture nor over-reaction against it. Books like Millard Erickson’s The Evangelical Left and George Marsden’s Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism tend to assume this spectrum as natural. The... Read more