Theoblogy
Do me a favor and put aside all of your Adventy niceness for just this one post. I hope and expect that the comment section will be filled with enormous amounts of snark. Think of it as your pre-Christmas snark release valve. Read more
Do me a favor and put aside all of your Adventy niceness for just this one post. I hope and expect that the comment section will be filled with enormous amounts of snark. Think of it as your pre-Christmas snark release valve. Read more
I’m a fan of Advent. I’d rather if we saved the Christmas carols till Christmas and instead immersed ourselves in Advent hymn during these days. But that’s a lost cause. However, you can take a little time to put Nat King Cole on pause and listen to some Advent hymns: Read more
I hope that some of you will join me in reading and talking through this book, starting on Monday (or possibly Tuesday): The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture by Christian Smith Biblicism, an approach to the Bible common among some American evangelicals, emphasizes together the Bible’s exclusive authority, infallibility, clarity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability. Acclaimed sociologist Christian Smith argues that this approach is misguided and unable to live... Read more
Because in the UK, where they do not, a debate is underway about whether churches should or should not be allowed to perform civil ceremonies for gay couple. But they’re also debating — as we should, too! — whether “marriage” is a civil function, or a sacerdotal function. (I’ve got some thoughts on that!) This month the equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, said the government was committed to removing the legal barrier to civil partnerships’ registration on the religious premises “of... Read more
Part of a week-long discussion of The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited by Scot McKnight What’s the bottom line of Scot’s book? I think it’s this: “We want to know what the first gospel was really like. We want to know how the first generation of apostles evangelized, and we want to know how that early gospeling compares to what we call evangelism and the gospel today.” (p. 114) Scot wants to get back to the apostolic gospel,... Read more
I regularly get asked for reading recommendations on the issues of same sex marriage and of the inclusion of gays in the life of church and society. Many books have been written on the subject, and I’m sure there are more in the pipeline. However, to date, I think that one stands out above the rest: (more…) Read more
Part of a week-long discussion of The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited by Scot McKnight Tomorrow, I’ll polish off my series on this book with a substantive post on Scot’s thesis, and whether I buy it. But for today, I’ve got some nits to pick. Forgive me, but I’m a booky person, and I’m also a quibbler, so there are some things about this (and every) book that bug me. And Scot has privately assured me that my... Read more
Mickey Maudlin, the capable and well-connected managing editor at HarperOne (think Rob Bell), has an interesting thought in his latest newsletter. He is promoting the latest book by NT Wright, and proposing the Wright breaks the mold of biblical scholarship by writing from a confessional posture, but still producing popular books. But I’m most intrigued by his intro: The late great Bible scholar F. F. Bruce once remarked that he would not have been able to do his work if... Read more
Part of a week-long discussion of The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited by Scot McKnight Scot says it repeatedly and clearly: the gospel is “the Story of Israel completing itself in the Story of Jesus.” There is, for Scot, no gospel without Israel. It is the hinge on which the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus swing. Of course, there is ample scriptural support for this view, and Scot relies on it heavily. As do most evangelicals.... Read more
Fred, the Slacktivist, has a take-off on my almost-meme #WhyPray. And, I must admit, he takes it in a completely different — and hilarious — direction. We pick it up mid-post: So for the prayer above, I substitute a prayer macro — a single, short phrase that can be employed to stand-in for the prayer in its entirety. Unlike software macros, creating prayer macros requires no special computer skill or knowledge of Perl or Java. Prayer macros are easily created... Read more
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