This is a trend growing exponentially—local congregations being “led” (that is, looking to) a Christian speaker (pastor, evangelist) far away who hardly knows they exist. Read more

2018 marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most horrific tragedies in recent American history. Read more

Why Become Roman Catholic? A Response to Christian Smith and Others Don’t get me wrong; I have great respect for sociologist Christian Smith and many others who have converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. The history of this goes back a long way; I can remember when Gordon College English professor Thomas Howard converted. Then came Peter Kreeft and many, many others. I have had excellent, bright, very evangelical students who have converted to the Church of Rome—from so-called mainline... Read more

One thing my study of the history of Christian thought has taught me is never to predict the future of Christianity. Read more

America itself should now be viewed as a mission field. Read more

Is There a Valid “Ethics of Distress?” Thoughts about Philosopher-Theologian Paul Ricoeur I am often amazed at how swiftly extremely creative and influential intellectuals and their works are forgotten. Who talks or writes about Paul Ricoeur (d. 2005) anymore? And yet, during the 1970s (and before and after) he was widely considered by Europeans and North Americans especially one of the foremost Christian thinkers. He was one of those rare intellectuals who inhabited a borderland between philosophy and theology and... Read more

Against Creedalism: Why I am a “Confessing Christian” but not a Creedal Christian My immediately preceding blog post (“Can Authentic Christianity Exist without Cognitive Truth Claims [Doctrines]?”) argued that authentic Christian unity cannot exist without shared cognitive truth claims (doctrines). I did not go into detail about which cognitive truth claims are necessary for true Christian unity because I have done that here several times before. My only purpose there was to argue that experience of God is not enough... Read more

Can our Christian unity exist and thrive without unifying cognitive beliefs (doctrines)? Read more

Thinking of Creation with Imagination (A Brief Musing by Bev Mitchell) (What follows here is a guest blog post by long-time reader and commenter here Bev Mitchell. The spelling is left as is—“British-Canadian.” As I always say, the guest poster here does not speak for me or any institution with which I am affiliated. Commenters may or may not receive any response; please keep all comments respectful and conducive to constructive dialogue.) The cosmic “watchmaker,” the blind or divinely determining... Read more

Book Recommendations: Most Important Books for Seminary Students and Books that Have Influenced Me Most Occasionally I am asked by someone, often a seminary student, for a list of books. Most recently a beginning seminary student asked me for two lists: 1) Those 5-10 books would I want every seminary student to read before they graduate, and 2) Those books have been most influential in my own development. This is always a challenge because I would want every seminary student... Read more