C.S. Lewis was not known for aggressive proselytizing during his tutorial sessions at Oxford and Cambridge. J.I. Packer once had the privilege of attending a Lewis lecture. “There was no clue that the man might be a Christian” Packer reports. There is nothing new here. It has long been known that Lewis, as Packer puts […]

Thomas Oden, United Methodist, longtime Professor of Theology at Drew University and prolific author began what he called his “long journey home” from liberalism to things orthodox and evangelical in 1979. You can read about it in his book from that year, Agenda For Theology. Since then Oden has published like wild fire including a […]

In his book Breaking Faith: The Pope, the People, and the Fate of Catholicism, John Cornwell identifies core beliefs held by Catholic laity between Vatican I (1869-70) and Vatican II (1962-65): Devotion to Mary as the Mother of God; the indissolubility of marriage, and the inadvisability of mixed marriage; the real presence […]

***When Richard Land (Southern Baptist), Jim Wallis (Sojourners), and Dwight Hopkins (University of Chicago) speak with a single voice, it’s news. All three gave a big thumbs down to the health and wealth positive thinking message of Joel Osteen over the holidays on CNN. Osteen’s messages would leave me buoyant and energized if he would […]

***Check out the article in the November 27 Wall Street Journal by Arthur C. Brooks, “A Charitable Explanation.” Everybody knows that France cares more and does more for the poor than other nations. And everybody knows that liberals in America care more and do more for the poor than conservatives. NOT! on both counts.
Americans give, […]

***Must evangelicalism and emerging churches be enemies?
Thomas Oden views modernity as the dying intellectual and cultural framework beyond which postmodern believers may move for the recovery of ancient, orthodox and yes, evangelical Christianity. He defines modernity according to the following four substantive or ideological commitments: (1) autonomous individualism (Sartre, Nietzsche, Hemingway) or in the East, […]

***Why sure. If I could believe the Bible with traditionalist, evangelical, Vacation Bible School naiveté without having to shove my brains in my pocket to git ’er done, I’d ah done it years ago. But I’m all growed up now, what with all the book-larnin and post-enlightenment storying and postmodern profanity and verb conjugating and […]

***My fascination with the emerging conversation continues. A cluster of insights, critiques, and values (mainly ecclesiological, methodological and cultural ones) intrigue and attract: (1) the missional seriousness, (2) the recovery of mystery and the arts, (3) the endorsement and embrace of narrative, (4) the commitment to a nuanced and discriminating assessment of the significance of […]

***Thank you Scot McKnight for working so hard to understand and interpret the emerging movement to a widening audience. As a professor in a Southern Baptist Seminary I am doing my best to correct Donald Carson’s distortive reduction of the movement “almost” to the writings of Brian McLaren that too many evangelicals have already accepted. […]

Greg Boyd preached and 1000 members (one-fifth of the total congregation) took their tithes and went home. When the New York Times learned the content of the sermon it left them positively atwitter. Boyd eschewed once and for all any “fusing of faith and politics.” No need to fear church bulletins stuffed with voter guides […]