Just saw that the new Themelios is out. You will want to give this one some time. Oodles of good pieces and reviews geared at thinking Christians of all types. The new issue includes a nice piece from D. A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on the imperative behind missions. Here’s a snatch: But the best warrant for Christian mission is Jesus himself. He claims all authority is his, but he speaks not as a cosmic bully but as... Read more
C. T. Studd, famous cricketeer and outspoken evangelical missionary, once said this: “Some wish to live within the sound of Church or Chapel bell; I want to run a Rescue Shop within a yard of hell.” If only we had more Christians who had more of this kind of mindset and less of a world-loving, comfort-driven, risk-averse kind of faith. Fear God, not man; serve God, not your own interests. Step out in faith and do something big, really big,... Read more
I just submitted a paper proposal for the 2012 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. In the course of doing so, and after seeing a Tweet from a friend indicating a stronger desire to preach than give a paper, I thought I would say something brief about this. In short, academic papers matter. Too often in evangelical circles we act as if the real action is in pastoring. I actually do believe that the church is at the center of... Read more
Got an email informing me of this new eBook from one of evangelicalism’s wittiest spiritual writers, Ted Kluck. It’s on the meteoric rise of Jeremy Lin (who’s doing quite well, thank you). Here is the table of contents: Introduction: An Open Letter to the Reader: What Does All of This Say About Us? Chapter 1: A Cultural Oddity: Lin and Shifting Racial Paradigms (or What Kind of NBA Superstar will Jeremy Lin Be?) Chapter 2: New York Knicks vs. Dallas... Read more
This from Credo magazine: Last fall I (Matthew Barrett) had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Bruce Ware, Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to talk about evangelicalism–past, present, and future. Ware is a former president of the Evangelical Theological Society and he provides much insight on the current state of evangelicalism. In this interview Ware talks about some of his evangelical heroes, doctrines that evangelicals are compromising on, how we should define the gospel (particularly in relation... Read more
Shaka Smart is the basketball coach of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. For two years in a row, his teams have made it to the national tournament and overachieved. He’s coveted now by many larger schools who can pay him a great deal more money than VCU. But he just surprised the college basketball world by declining a $2.5 million/year offer from Illinois to stay at VCU for half that. Here’s the rationale: “My family is really, really happy... Read more
This from Theolatte, the blog of Dan DeWitt, the dean of Boyce College: Today at Boyce College we hosted a panel discussion on the impact of Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters in light of the seventy year anniversary of its publication. The participants included: myself; Dr. Jim Orrick, Professor of Literature and Culture; Dr. Owen Strachan, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History; and Dr. Travis Kerns, Assistant Professor of Christian Worldview and Apologetics. The audio is available here. I enjoyed being... Read more
One of the world’s biggest music festivals, South by Southwest (SXSW), just wrapped. Gospel rapper Lecrae was there and performed with Trip Lee. While he was in Austin, allhiphop.com, one of the best-read rap websites, did a brief interview with him. Lecrae has had a pretty wild year, which included recent praise from legendary southern rapper Bun B. If you missed it, Lecrae did a rap at the BET awards a few months back. He participated in a “cipher,” a... Read more
From a compelling article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Mr. DeMillo: The blog is essentially an expression of a master teacher’s understanding of a field to people that want to learn about it. We think that there are some very simple layers that can be built under the existing blogging format that can essentially turn it into a massive open online seminar. It’s also a way of conducting scientific research. When you think about what happens in this blog, it... Read more
From The Guardian: Researchers at Western Illinois University studied the Facebook habits of 294 students, aged between 18 and 65, and measured two “socially disruptive” elements of narcissism – grandiose exhibitionism (GE) and entitlement/exploitativeness (EE). GE includes ”self-absorption, vanity, superiority, and exhibitionistic tendencies” and people who score high on this aspect of narcissism need to be constantly at the centre of attention. They often say shocking things and inappropriately self-disclose because they cannot stand to be ignored or waste a... Read more
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