I was having a conversation with a friend who is a United Methodist pastor a few years back. He was a well educated man with a doctoral degree and Arminian to the core. We got onto the subject of predestination vs free will, and he quoted the following to me (though not in my own…
Ben Witherington has a good post today about political deception with a brief intro on parthenogenesis. On the latter, I would simply note that I see no particular benefit to Christianity in proving that a virgin birth is possible. The value of the doctrine stems at least in part from the fact that it is…
Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength as announced a new blog carnival, Christian Reconciliation Carnival: Call for Submissions, to be published monthly. This month’s topic: setting the record straight for strawman arguments made against your group. Submissions by midnight on 1/30/2007.
In preparing the Christian Carnival CLVIII, which I hosted this week on my Participatory Bible Study Blog, I found a real gem of a post on gifting. Dana, of Dana’s Avenue, wrote about Gifting, and the experience of discovering excitement in the gift of accounting. This really strikes a cord with me, because in my…
One of the primary objections that conservative Christians have to the work of historical Jesus scholars is that they often have a tendency to create Jesus in their own image, or at least in an image congenial to them. This is said particularly of the scholars of the third quest, and of the Jesus Seminar…
A friend e-mailed me about a post which caught my attention. It seems that a blogger wanted to use the feed of the ESV Bible from the official web site, but found that the terms of service required him to accept a doctrinal statement first (relevant links are in his entry). Personally, I think that…
Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are both tied to the formation of a new umbrella group of Baptist denominations in an article in the Washington Post. I should point out what could easily be missed–Clinton described himself as a cheerleader and refused to be interviewed. Carter is apparently more involved. This is not…
One of the problems with having a sign in front of your church, and particularly a denominational identity, is that it produces certain expectations in people who may considering entering your property and visiting your church for an event or a worship service. Now some of you may not think this is a problem–you want…
One of the dividing lines in Christian churches today is over the gifts of the Holy Spirit. While speaking in tongues gets most of the attention, the gift of prophecy is a close second. In terms of its potential to tear a church apart, it comes out ahead of tongues, I think. Currently there seem…
Speaking of swearing in on relevant books, the new Governor of Massacheusetts chose to take his oath on a Bible that was a gift of freed slaves to John Quincy Adams who had fought for their release, according to the Boston Globe (Hat tip: Breaking Christian News (e-mail). I like the symbolism involved in that.
