One week from Saturday, I’m giving an oral final/homily to a (late vocations) N.T. class that I’m taking. I had a suggestion to do my homily concentrating on the topic of tolerance. Right now I’m thinking of starting (and wrapping up?) with a look at the section in John in which . . . . Continue Reading »
In part 1 we briefly examined the theological persuasion of the dispensational evangelical. Now in part two we look into some of current attitudes that exist in the world outside of dispensational evangelicalism.The tragic history of Luther’s later years has haunted Europe for centuries. Early . . . . Continue Reading »
A notable characteristic of dispensationalism, one which distinguishes it from both amillennial eschatology and even from historic premillennialism, is how the dispensationalist views the Jewish people and the nation Israel. The following are some quite brief notes on the subject, followed by a . . . . Continue Reading »
I have been reading the final book in CS Lewis’s space trilogy That Hideous Strength, and I came across an excerpt worth sharing. For those unfamiliar with the book a man named Mark (who is an unbeliever) is being programmed under the threat of violence to think . . . . Continue Reading »
Two well known strands of Protestant theology are the Calvinist and Arminian. There are a number of differences between these two schools but one of them keys on soteriology (salvation). Calvinists would hold that once a person is saved, he is always saved. Arminians dispute this idea. Consider the . . . . Continue Reading »
We begin with the axiom that all things are interpreted. We interpret the world around us according to our personal framework — our world view and our presumed method(s) for arriving at an accurate conclusion. We may learn these frameworks from others and subsequently tailor them as needed to . . . . Continue Reading »
(a recycled post from another life)Though a good number of modern liberals whom I’ve read make specific appeals to Schleiermacher for their sentiments about God and the nature of Christianity, few make any appeal to the origins of their ethical foundations. While many positive statements are . . . . Continue Reading »
This started as a reply about hermeneutic in the context of the flood on my personal blog. Do we take the flood literally or not. My interlocutor was exasperated exclaiming that to not take the text literally implies words have no meaning. This is exactly backwords. Here is my response to him.Yes, . . . . Continue Reading »
While it’s still unclear how LOST will ultimately end up, some recent developments seem to provide a good illustration of one way people have chosen to resolve the problem that has plagued humanity throughout history: Deep down, we know we deserve justice from God, but we want grace. How can . . . . Continue Reading »
Just about every evangelical church has lay people positioned as elders and teachers, rarely with formal theological training. Obviously, formal training doesn’t necessarily make one a good teacher, but it gives warrant to the belief that the person has a certain degree of knowledge of what . . . . Continue Reading »