The Christian Alliance for Progress has been reporting a particularly egregious case of religious intolerance in the school system. There is now a petition drive, and you can get involved here.
To be honest, I’m not terribly optimistic about the value of this type of petition campaign, but I would imagine it can’t hurt.
A great quote: We Americans aren’t very good at absolute authority, but we presently have the opposite of it in the UMC – we have an episcopacy shackled to lead, but convenient to blame. It’s a great system to play armchair quarterback in, but it doesn’t make disciples. Go read the rest. It’s thought provoking.
That’s what Allan Bevere suggests as the ordination process, based on his experience in Cuba. I find the idea attractive, at least for certain types of ministry. There might be other ways to test various gifts. It does relate to a problem I’ve noted amongst United Methodist ministers, many of whom come out of seminary…
I reported some time ago that the United Methodist General Conference had passed some resolutions in support of evolution and opposing teaching faith based ideas in the public school science classroom. There’s a story in the Fort Wayne, Indiana Journal-Gazette about how this happened and the role of a local church member. I have observed…
I have often annoyed people by saying both that I believe in substitutionary atonement, though I prefer not to use “penal substitutionary atonement,” and also do not believe it is the sole reason for, view of, or metaphor to describe what God did in the atonement. So it’s nice to link to Roger Olson, who…
I headed out to vote yesterday in the Florida primary. We had contests for a number of local offices. I’m registered with no party affiliation, but there was one non-partisan race that needed thinning out and one race that would be settled by the Republican primary. It was a fairly easy task to fill out…
John Cassian was a monk and ascetic writer from Gaul and lived in the late 4th and early 5th centuries AD [source]. I found this in Hebrews: Ancient Christian commentary on Scripture, New Testament X, though I went to the Order of Saint Benedict Lectio site for the translation I use here: YOU must then,…
