Featured Posts
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What Is Biblical Literacy?
We complain about it, write about it, claim it’s important or even critical, design programs to create it, but what is it? I don’t mean that none of us know what we mean when we say “biblically literate” or “biblically illiterate,” but do we all mean the same thing? I don’t think we do, and…
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Fences: Mending or Rending
The following is a sermon I presented at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Pensacola on September 11,2005 and originally posted here on September 13, 2005. I’m reposting it because when I went to look for it, I found that the original post had somehow been truncated, and also because there is a one word at a…
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Experiencing the (Baptism of the) Holy Spirit
This is a topic where I tend to make just about everyone uncomfortable. Long time readers may recall a previous discussion of speaking in tongues, and my own experience of it. Those who expect me to be intellectually oriented and rational are uncomfortable with mystical experiences, and many who are comfortable with the mystical experiences…
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Google Hangout Tonight: Is Your Faith Relevant?
Tonight I’ll be interviewing two Enerigon authors, Drew Smith (Reframing a Relevant Faith) and Lee Harmon (The River of Life: Where Conservative and Liberal Christianity Meet) about what their faith means to them, especially in the context of the holidays. You can watch the event right here, using the viewer below, or you will be…
Against Torture
I think it’s as simple as that. I’m against it. Energion author Bob Cornwall writes about it, and I agree. I saw one question that disturbed me, not in that I don’t know how to respond, but in what else it may suggest. The question is whether I’d support torture if an individual knew where…
Helping One Another Change
I just extracted a note from Dave Black’s blog to The Jesus Paradigm. (That site supports his book by the same name as well as a few others that don’t have their own domain name.) In it Dave talks about admonishing, encouraging, and upholding. You’ll have to go read the post to find out what…
The Very Model of a Biblical Philologist
Too funny! (Hat tip: Jim West)
Recommending a New Blog: Across the Atlantic
My friend Thomas Hudgins is starting a new blog, which will have material from two radically different points of view. I’d love to see more of this sort of thing—people of substantially different views actually communicating! Check out Across the Atlantic.
Being Subject to the Authorities
While I haven’t written anything on it myself, I’ve published quite a number of books regarding how Christians should relate to authority. These include Christian Archy and The Jesus Paradigm (David Alan Black), Ultimate Allegiance and Faith in the Public Square (Bob Cornwall), Rendering unto Caesar (Chris Surber), and Preserving Democracy (Elgin L. Hushbeck, Jr.)….
Three Little Pigs
With a hat tip to Jacob Cerone. I nearly died laughing.
Advent-Christmas Sale from Energion Publications
I want to let all my readers know that my company, Energion Publications, including all our imprints (Enzar Empire Press, EnerPower Press, eucatastrophe press, as well as our main Energion Publications) have all books on sale for 25% off with the coupon code Advent2014 at Energion Direct. Just enter the code at checkout and get…
Hangout Tonight: Truly Serving the Homeless
I’ll be hosting a Google Hangout on Air tonight discussing how we can truly serve and relate to the homeless in and around our communities. Authors Renee Crosby (Soup Kitchen for the Soul, The Fringe [forthcoming]) and Shauna Hyde (Victim No More, Fifty Shades of Grace, The Vicar of Tent Town [forthcoming]) will be giving…
Some Comments on Writing Introductions with Special Attention to John
I’m planning to start doing some discussion of Bible passages using Google Hangouts on Air during the coming year. Basically, I’m going to work through material I intend to use in Sunday School. One may ask why I’m doing this, considering that the last time I tried, I had little success. Well, the difference is…
Where I Work
I don’t do that much blogging that’s personal. I mostly do opinion stuff. So heres a picture of my work area a couple of days ago and I’m going to say a bit about it. I work in a 12×24 portable building that I had finished inside. It’s well insulated and it’s air conditioned. The…
Rambling Through Ephesians
This past Sunday I was reading the Lectionary passages for Christ the King Sunday in which the epistle is Ephesians 1:15-23, in which Paul gives thanks for the Ephesian believers. I find the style of Ephesians quite fascinating, and especially these long prayer passages. In fact, I used two of them in a pamphlet I…
From My Editing Work: Discipleship Is Costly and Liberating
From Reframing a Relevant Faith, forthcoming by C. Drew Smith: When Jesus comes upon these fishermen they are doing what they normally do on any given day; they are fishing. Indeed, this was their life; this was their existence. Fishing was what was routine and comfortable for them. While their occupation as fishermen was hard…
When Fear Drives
Recently the topic of risk and danger has come up in several discussions of Christian Ministry. Shauna Hyde, who I interviewed along with Chris Surber, has spent the night in tent town with homeless folks and earned the informal title “vicar of tent town.” People have told her she’s crazy. But she manages to live…
From My Editing Work: Our Global Kingdom Citizenship
Two paragraphs from Rendering unto Caesar: The most obvious conflict with the fusion of Christian and American identity is that it denies the universal nature of the Kingdom of God. When our allegiances are too strongly aligned with any kingdom of this world, be it the relatively benevolent kingdom of America or a malevolent kingdom…
From My Editing Work: Claim Your Identity as a Theologian
From the forthcoming book Finding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job by Bruce G. Epperly. The book of Job invites us to claim our identity as theologians. Job shouts out to us, “You are a theologian” because we have experienced the pain of the world and are trying to make sense of it. Job…
The Potential Arrogance of Moderation
Before you continue, look at the tag line for this blog. I self identify as a moderate, though I have a somewhat eccentric view of being moderate. My view of moderation doesn’t really solve the problem, however. As a moderate, I believe I should examine the whole spectrum of views on any issue before trying…
Author Interview: Christopher J. Freet on Hospitality as a Key to Missions
Tonight in our Tuesday night hangout series, I will be interviewing Christopher J. Freet, author of the newly released book A New Look at Hospitality as a Key to Missions in the Areopagus Critical Christian Issues series regarding the topic of hospitality. We are open to audience questions. You can view this event on the…
Some Thoughts on Ecclesiology from Someone Utterly Unqualified
Several things I’ve written lately lead to thoughts on ecclesiology, though that is hardly one of my subjects. People do sometimes make assumptions because I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation. So I’m going to make this personal, first saying why I am in a United Methodist congregation and second saying what I see…
How and Why Ezekiel, Hebrews, and Leviticus Shaped My Theology (Briefly!)
In a comment, Steve Kindle asks: … in regards to your formative books, Hebrews, Ezekiel, and Leviticus, is it because you see Hebrews as teaching substitutionary atonement that springs from Leviticus? And Ezekiel foresees a renewed covenant that Hebrews embellishes? Just wondering. The briefest answer would be “no.” But leaving it at that would be…
Yet More Hebrews and Old Testament-New Testament Continuity
One of the things I love about both blogging and publishing is the number of interesting and capable people I get to interact with. It’s something I’ve missed since graduate school days—the opportunity to run my ideas up against people who can really challenge them. Dave Black has written some commentary on this matter of…
Hebrews Backgrounds
Since I’m revising my Hebrews study guide, and have been for more than a year, I can bring up complaints against the old one. One of the most common complaints was that people had a hard time connecting the background reading to the current passage. I included three reading lists: 1) Minimum reading, 2) Extra…
For Veterans Day
Watch this:
@ChicagoRabbi on Responses to Bad Things Happening to Good People
I’m always interested in answers to the question of why bad things happen to good people, though a pastor I know always says this is the wrong question. He says a better question would be why good things ever happen to anybody! Somebody else recently pointed out to me that in Christian theology there are…