A good friend who is on staff of a church recently uttered a phrase I had never heard before–“sign ministry.”  At first I thought he was referring to “signing” for hearing impaired members of the congregation.  But he was referring to using the church sign/marquee to send messages to the community. For some reason I pay far too much attention to the cute little sayings on church signs.  I wish I could avoid that and somehow just ignore them.  MOST... Read more

Recently I was in a worship service where we were asked to sing the hymn “Be Still My Soul.”  Here are the troubling lyrics: “Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide; In every change, He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. Be still, my soul: thy God... Read more

Someone asked me for my source regarding the difference between “centered sets” and “bounded sets.”  (This is with reference to my argument that evangelicalism is a centered set and not a bounded set.) I first encountered this distinction in the following article by missiologist Paul Hiebert: “Coversion, Culture and Cognitive Categories” in Gospel in Context 1:4 (October, 1978), 24-29. I highly recommend it if you can locate it.  I believe it was republished as a chapter in a later book... Read more

I know I’ve talked about this before here, but many of my subscribers and readers are new since then.  So, before my book Against Calvinism comes out about one month from now I want to make clear (as I do in the book) what the title means and doesn’t mean. First, I am not “against Calvinists” except insofar as SOME of them misrepresent other theologies and/or claim that Calvinism is the only authentically evangelical (or Christian) theology. Second, I am... Read more

Several commenters here have asked why I hold on to the label “evangelical.”  Why not just give it up in light of its contemporary connotations in American society?  (It has become virtually synonymous with fundamentalism or neo-fundamentalism and the so-called Religious Right.)  Well, let me explain again. The Merriam-Webster on line dictionary defines “evangelical” several ways.  Here are the first three definitions: 1) Of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in... Read more

It’s just out: Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism published by Zondervan.  Edited by Andrew David Naselli and Collin Hansen in the series Counterpoints edited by Stanley Gundry.  The authors of the four views are: Kevin T. Bauder (Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Minneapolis), R. Albert Mohler, Jr. (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), John G. Stackhouse, Jr. (Regent College) and Roger E. Olson (Baylor University).  Bauder writes on Fundamentalism; Mohler writes on Confessional Evangelicalism; Stackhouse writes on Generic Evangelicalism; Olson writes... Read more

As we have seen here (in my posts and the comments), one can make K. into almost anything.  He wrote much and sometimes seemed to contradict himself.  His goal was not so much to produce a system (in fact that was no goal at all!) but to make people think–to shake them out of complacency both about their own lives and about Christianity. My own reading of K. has led me to believe he was what I consider an evangelical–a... Read more

In Part 1 I raised the question whether Soren Kierkegaard should be regarded as a forerunner and ally of modern/contemporary evangelicalism. This isn’t a new discussion, but I haven’t heard it lately among evangelicals.  With exceptions, of course, it seems like conservative evangelicals have developed a consensus that K. was not an evangelical or an ally of evangelicals but, as Francis Schaeffer claimed, a pernicious influence on modern/contemporary theology.  For Schaeffer and his crew, K.’s main theological influence was on... Read more

Perhaps a better way of asking the question is–should contemporary evangelicals regard Kierkegaard (henceforth “K”) as a forerunner and historical ally?  Of course, I’m addressing this question not to the average evangelical in the pews (or in front of their television sets, reading the latest popular “Christian fiction” from the Christian bookstore) but to educated pastors, lay people and scholars.  In my experience, most books about evangelicalism neglect or ignore K.  Those that trace evangelicalism’s roots tend to focus on... Read more

I just discovered that one of my heroes, former Oregon senator Mark Hatfield, an evangelical politician and liberal Republican died August 7 at the age of 89. Hatfield was a formative influence on my emergence from knee jerk conservatism and fundamentalism.  He was a devout evangelical Christian who spoke and wrote publicly about his faith and how he integrated it with his political life (and about the tensions that created). He was a man of compassion for the poor who... Read more