According to his website, Ken Silva died on Sunday. It states, “He had succumbed to the strain of the pain he had been enduring for the past few years.” Ken Silva was a longtime internet nemesis of mine, and probably the most singleminded opponent of the emerging church movement on the internet. But it wasn’t just me and emergent at which he took aim. Ken was against everyone — Rick Warren, the Catholic Church, John Piper, John MacArthur, liberals, Brian... Read more
I’ve been beating the drum that seminaries across the land are in a time of crisis. Here are some examples: Obituary for the Residential Seminary A Tale of Three Seminaries Official Seminary Response Now at General Theological Seminary in New York City, the flagship school of the Episcopal Church, a situation is happening that some describe as war. Eight professors, in conflict with the dean, walked out of GTS, refusing to teach, attend meetings, or participate in common worship, then... Read more
The above full-page ad was run on the back of the Sunday sports section in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Sunday. According to reports, it’s from a coalition of religious right and Tea Party activists who regularly oppose legislation meant to protect vulnerable communities. When they fought anti-bullying legislation, it was under the pretense of government intrusion in schools. But this worse, way worse. With an image of a shower and a rhetorical question about a boy showering with “your... Read more
Peter Enns is a fellow Patheosian. Ooh, I like that. Patheosian. We also have the same literary agent, editor, and publisher. In spite of that, I’ve never met him. But I’ve admired him from afar. So I’m excited to post this email interview that I conducted with him. 1. I love your book. You have the rare skill of being able to translate serious biblical scholarship into light-hearted and witty prose. Have you always been funny? Not really. I had to... Read more
Friend of the blog and Yale philosopher Keith DeRose has a fascinating interview up at the NYTimes’s The Stone. On the heels of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s admission that he sometimes doubts the existence of God, Keith argues that no one knows whether God exists. But, more politically unpopular these days, he argues just as strongly that atheists cannot prove — indeed, don’t even know — that God doesn’t exist: The thought that God exists does strike many atheists as... Read more
Last night in yoga, I couldn’t help but smile. I know I’m supposed to be totally and completely focused on the moment — and I was — but I was also thinking about the past. When I wrote The Sacred Way, editors and Zondervan made me take out two passages: one that mentioned drinking a beer, and one that referred to a yoga pose. (It didn’t matter that the pose I mentioned was in the context of a spiritual retreat led... Read more
Are you in seminary? Starting grad school this fall? If so, here are some hints to make your professors more happier as they grade your papers: Avoid the subjunctive mood. Avoid the passive voice. Don’t use “scare quotes.” Punctuation goes inside of quote marks. See above. Book titles are italicized, not underlined or in quote marks. Always use a serif font. Always use the Oxford Comma. Only a single space between sentences. Unless you’re using a typewriter. Which you aren’t.... Read more
As a blogger, one never knows. Most posts are crickets. Sometimes, a post captures the attention of an audience and goes a bit viral. That’s what happened to last week’s post about the three major Protestant seminaries in the Twin Cities (though the traffic to that post still paled in comparison to the previous posts on Driscoll and Pannenberg). There’s been conversation online about that post, and a fair amount of criticism of what I wrote (you can see the... Read more
I spent the summer revising and rewriting Did God Kill Jesus? That meant that the subject of Jesus’ death was front-of-mind much of the time. Even as I mowed the lawn or biked to work, I was thinking about this. My editor has expressed some trepidation over the question. Of course, God didn’t kill Jesus, in the sense that God didn’t pound the nails into his wrists and hoist the cross upright. But even if God stood aside and allowed to happen, God... Read more
If you’d like to know about my new book, Did God Kill Jesus?, before the throngs and the hordes, sign up on this form (only an email address is required). Here’s a taste of what you’ll read in that book: (more…) Read more
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