According to the Church Growth Institute, the way to start and grow a church is to “target” a specific demographic and focus on them. However, looking at today’s American churches, especially evangelical ones, there’s more to it. If you want to “plant” (start) a church, begin with money. There are many networks of churches such as ARC that will provide funds to the right people to start a church. Second, rent or buy a very bland-looking, office-type building and give... Read more

This essay continues a series on why I am an “evangelical Arminian Christian.” 6) My Sixth Principle: Receiving Answers to Life’s Ultimate Questions Involves Faith (But Faith Should Be Supported by Reasons) (By Roger E. Olson) As I move on in this series of “my principles,” what I say will increasingly assume readers’ knowledge of the previous essays. Unlike many television shows, I will not “summarize” the main points after each “commercial break.” I will simply depend on readers, and... Read more

“The strong must stand with the weak and defend their cause.” That is Walter Rauschenbusch’s third of Jesus’s social principles in The Social Principles of Jesus. If you are reading it with me, feel free to comment. If not, feel free to ask a question. In any case, observe the rules stated at the end here. According to Baptist theologian Rauschenbusch, Jesus had a social platform or program. It was what liberation theologians have labeled “the preferential option for the... Read more

Recently one of my valued interlocutors here, an intellectual who espouses secular humanism, asked me to consider the arguments of Jacob Bronowski. Bronowski argued that the human species has special value and dignity because of the capacities it has (we have) such as complex language and the ability to communicate and hand down discoveries and ideas through the centuries and across cultures. This was in response to my argument that secular humanism contains at its heart a conundrum: that it... Read more

A Mysterious Topic: “Mystery,” “Paradox,” and “Contradiction” in Theology One way in which some well-meaning but misguided persons have attempted to resolve the seemingly intractable differences between divine determinism, including evil as part of God’s plan rendered certain by God, and creaturely free will as power of contrary choice, including evil as not part of God’s plan and not rendered certain by God but the result of creaturely decision and action, is appeal to mystery. An old sermon illustration, possibly... Read more

“What the world needs is a powerful sense of solidarity.” That is the final sentence of chapter 2 of The Social Principles of Jesus by Walter Rauschenbusch. Here I take up that chapter, titled The Solidarity of the Human Family. If you have read the chapter, feel free to comment on it and/or on my thoughts here expressed. If not, feel free to ask a question. In any case, observe the rules stated below. In this chapter, building on the... Read more

This essay continues a series about why I am an “evangelical Arminian Christian.” 5) My Fifth Principle: Answers to Life’s Ultimate Questions Must Be Revealed (And Received) As I move on in this series of “my principles,” what I say will increasingly assume readers’ knowledge of the previous essays. Unlike many television shows, I will not “summarize” the main points after each “commercial break.” I will simply depend on readers, and especially commenters, to have read through the series so... Read more

Here I begin discussion of Walter Rauschenbusch’s book The Social Principles of Jesus with the first chapter: The Value of Human Life. If you have read the chapter, feel free to comment. If not, feel free to ask a question. In any case, observe the rules stated at the end of this post. For those who do not know, Walter Rauschenbusch was the leading theologian of the American Social Gospel movement. He died in 1918 after teaching for many years... Read more

After numerous conversations with people and watching and listening to many interviews and commentaries and reading many books I have concluded there are two kinds of people in the world. Some people are individualists who regard society as a collection of responsible individuals and some people are organic thinkers who regard society as an organic, interdependent whole. Of course, people exist along a spectrum, but all fall either more to the individualist side or to the organic side. Individualists tend... Read more

*First read my first three posts in this series; they immediately precede this blog post. This essay continues a series of essays answering why I am an “evangelical Arminian Christian.” 4) My Fourth Principle: There Is No “View from Nowhere” (or “View from Everywhere”) (By Roger E. Olson) As I move on in this series of “my principles,” what I say will increasingly assume readers’ knowledge of the previous essays. Unlike many television shows, I will not “summarize” the main... Read more