I’m reading the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Volume X, Hebrews, and I found this interesting quote from St. John Chrysostom: St. John Chrysostom We ought to receive all things with faith and reverence, and, when our discourse fails through weakness and is not able to set forth accurately the things that are…
Today I went on a sort of odyssey through a couple of theologically conservative blogs. My journey started at Adrian Warnock’s blog, where he has another quote from somebody supporting penal substitutionary atonement (PSA): While not denying the wide-ranging character of Christs atonement, I am arguing that penal substitution is foundational and the heart of…
The Evangelical Ecologist has an excellent post titled Closing Credibility Gaps. I think that I’m in a good position to underline his post, as a member of a congregation of the United Methodist Church, one of those declining mainline denominations. Just so the error seekers know that I saw it, I will quibble slightly over…
A community must have some sort of definition in order to exist. This may seem fairly obvious, but often in discussions of religion we lose sight of that fact in efforts to be inclusive. It’s important to remember that there is a difference between saying somebody is a bad person and saying that they don’t…
Peter Kirk has a post, The personal relevance of the atonement, that expresses what I have been trying to say about the atonement much more precisely than I have managed to do it. I commend it strongly. At the same time, Adrian has posted again regarding a review of Pierced for Our Transgressions. Since I…
I have written a few times before on the need for a core of essential beliefs that provide a basis for community along with a broader set of non-essentials on which people can agree. Probably my most comprehensive discussion of the issue is in Unity, Diversity, and Confusion. Over the last few days I’ve been…
Laura has a good post with some material from Dr. John Piper. I have previously disagreed with Piper on PSA, whilst joyfully and vigorously agreeing with him on hearing God’s voice. In this case, I agree with him on both items, even though my placid nature would probably have resulted in a less vigorous use…
Adrian Warnock is again posting on the penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) issue, now about an interview with the authors of Pierced for Our Transgressions. Now I’m not going to post on PSA today in detail. But Adrian manages to demonstrate some aspects of this discussion from his side of the fence that annoy me-no, that’s…
In a recent post Dave Warnock looks through the preface by John Piper to Pierced for Our Trangressions, and quotes the following: This is how I feel today about teachers of Christs people who deny and even belittle precious, life-saving, biblical truth.When a person says that Gods punishing his Son for an offence he has…
A discussion has been raging over on the Religion Forum, and Tom Sims has taken it up on his blog regarding Bishop Spong and a quote (Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin) in which he says: “Religion in America today embarrasses me,” said Spong, 75, who will speak in Rochester next week. “If that’s what Christianity is all…
