A Notable Critique of Rachel Held Evans’s “Year of Biblical Womanhood”

Last updated on: October 11, 2013 at 8:27 am By Owen Strachan

Over at CBMW Reviews you’ll find a short, irenic and theologically muscular review of the controversial A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans. The review is by complementarian voice Aimee Byrd (at left). Here’s a selection: With all the research that Evans does, she seemingly doesn’t understand the basic principles of biblical hermeneutics. Literal interpretation, i.e., reading the Bible literarily, always discerns the different genres that are involved. More specifically, faithful interpretation pays attention to both the grammar and redemptive historical setting... Read more

Rosaria Butterfield Subject to Protests at University in Florida

Last updated on: October 10, 2013 at 10:33 am By Owen Strachan

Denny Burk has the details: With this kind of PR before the event, you can only imagine how the actual presentation went. The protesters came to the event and made their presence known. The campus newspaper reports: As Rosaria Butterfield began her lecture about her journey and “train wreck conversion” from a lesbian professor to a Christian, a pastor’s wife and mother of four, nine students in the front row of the audience stood up silently, took off their jackets, turned their... Read more

We Feel Unsafe Today Because We Are

Last updated on: October 4, 2013 at 7:24 am By Owen Strachan

Yesterday, a woman attempted to drive past White House guards. She was unsuccessful and sped up to the U. S. Capitol building where she was shot and killed. It’s not immediately clear why Miriam Carey did this, and why she placed her child’s life in danger (the child was apparently unharmed). My friend Eric Teetsel chronicled all of this on Twitter; he was feet from the scene. This latest burst of madness in D. C. did not result in mass... Read more

The Husband Who Would Not Leave His Wife Behind

Last updated on: October 3, 2013 at 10:58 am By Owen Strachan

It’s been too long since a basketball-related item graced this humble little blog. Well, here’s one. Look out: it will get you. Former Celtics point guard Bob Cousy (one of the three greatest Celtics ever, with Bill Russell and Larry Bird) recently lost his wife, Missie. The Worcester Telegram, one of a thousand city or small-town newspapers out there doing great work, just did a profile of Cousy. Portrait of a husband in grief, it could be called. If you... Read more

Review “Risky Gospel” (Coming Nov. 2013) & Help Promote

Last updated on: October 2, 2013 at 1:26 pm By Owen Strachan

In 7 weeks, my book Risky Gospel: Abandon Fear and Build Something Awesome (Thomas Nelson, Nov. 26, 2013) releases. [Update: We’ve had such a strong response to an earlier version of this blog post that we’re not taking any more review requests, and we’ll encourage everyone else coming a bit later to buy the book. Thanks so much!) Needless to say, I’m excited about this. I’m happy with the content; I love Kyle Idleman’s foreword (he wrote a terrific book on... Read more

A University of Wisconsin Student Challenges “Diversity Training”

Last updated on: October 1, 2013 at 1:04 pm By Owen Strachan

If you care about freedom of speech, and if you want universities and colleges to feature and even sponsor the free exchange of ideas, you should read this story. Here’s the tease from The Fix: Jason Morgan, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student earning his doctorate there, has told his supervisor he objects to the school’s mandated diversity training for teaching assistants (TAs) because leaders of the first session he attended essentially called him – and the whole class – racist.... Read more

Christian Freedom May Not Mean What You’ve Been Told

Last updated on: September 26, 2013 at 12:25 pm By Owen Strachan

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant, subject to all.” –Martin Luther, The Freedom of the Christian (1520) Christian freedom is one of the hottest spiritual topics today. To folks accustomed to moralistic Christianity and sets of rules that guide Christian conduct, Christian freedom is oftentimes a Copernican discovery, a worldview revolution. The gospel does not exist to make people buttoned-down and morose, grimly discharging duty to the... Read more

Introducing The Federalist, a New Long-form Culture Site

Last updated on: September 18, 2013 at 8:42 am By Owen Strachan

The Federalist, from Ben Domenech, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, and Sean Davis, sounds very exciting: At The Federalist, you’ll read interesting essays informed by this general worldview, with writing on big subjects and small. If you are a subscriber to The Transom, you can expect more content along those lines, with the sharpest writers digging into the major issues of the day with a viewpoint that rejects the assumptions of the media establishment. You can also expect us to expand more into... Read more

A Brief Essay on the New Narcissistic Creed: “I Will Win”

Last updated on: September 17, 2013 at 1:58 pm By Owen Strachan

I will win. Why? I’ll tell you why—because I have faith, courage, and enthusiasm! Today, I’ll meet the right people in the right place at the right time for the betterment of all. I see opportunity in every challenge. I am terrific at remembering names. When I fail, I look at what I did right, not what I did wrong. I have clearly defined goals. I never take advice from anyone more messed up than I am. I never let... Read more

Carl Henry’s 9 Criteria That Make an Excellent Christian University

Last updated on: September 14, 2013 at 6:59 am By Owen Strachan

I just wrote a short piece about the great theologian Carl F. H. Henry for Southern Seminary’s “Towers,” the newspaper. In the piece, I gave readers a little preview of the material found in my dissertation, which details at great length Henry’s quest for a great Christian university. Here’s a little tease from the essay. If you’re in Christian higher education as I am, or if you enjoy thinking about what Christian colleges and universities could be, you might enjoy... Read more