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July 2013

July 30, 2013

A new metaphor for thinking about heaven and hell

I've been reading a very stimulating and provocative book by Pauline Biblical scholar Michael Gorman...

July 26, 2013

Total providence or total depravity? (John Cassian as a remedy for Augustinian nihilism)

In a recent post, John Meunier writes, "You cannot speak intelligently about Wesleyan theology if...

July 25, 2013

Letter to an atheist

Dear hitherto unknown friend, I have been invited into conversation with you by Kile Jones...

July 25, 2013

Exclusively for the excluded

I recently read a post by fellow Methodist blogger Talbot Davis critiquing the pursuit of...

July 24, 2013

Is the gospel the invitation to a party or a get out of hell card?

For the first 1500 years of Christianity, the high point of every worship gathering was...

July 19, 2013

An example of holy conferencing?

Kevin Watson is a fellow Methodist blogger whom I discovered recently. He just did a...

July 15, 2013

We are always praying; the question is to whom

Yesterday our senior pastor preached a thought-provoking sermon on prayer based upon Jesus' teaching in...

July 12, 2013

Should women cover their heads in church?

The latest movement in neo-patriarchal evangelicaldom is a call for women to return to covering...

July 09, 2013

What are the “weightier matters of the law”? (Matthew 23:23)

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase "weightier matters of the law"? It...

July 08, 2013

Why you have to be poor to treat people like Jesus did

The title is everything if you want a well-trafficked blog post. Now my task is...

June 2013

June 28, 2013

Love is not love unless it becomes flesh

One of the things I acquired from growing up in evangelical youth groups and parachurch...

June 26, 2013

Christian holiness and the gay marriage debate

If there ever comes a time when evangelical Christians are known for something other than...

June 23, 2013

Are there other “gods” besides #God?

I'm working through the fourth chapter of Greg Boyd's God At War, in which he...

June 22, 2013

Should we preach to uplift or convict?

A couple of years ago, we were going around the room at our new member...

June 20, 2013

Creation: something from nothing or ordering chaos

I've been working my way through Greg Boyd's God At War. One of the things...

June 16, 2013

Sarah Moon and unmerciful #universalism

A week ago, ex-evangelical blogger Sarah Moon wrote a post titled: "When my abuser is...

June 14, 2013

Greg Boyd on evil, spiritual warfare, and divine sovereignty

I've started reading Greg Boyd's God At War, which I checked out of the local...

June 12, 2013

Could you worship a God who makes Himself nothing?

[This is the first synchroblog of our new blogging collective The Despised Ones addressing the...

June 10, 2013

Fearing God vs. carrying a fearsome god-puppet who agrees with you

Those who have read this blog for a while will recall that about a year...

June 09, 2013

Gregory of Nazianzus on how the cross “pays” for sin

[***UPDATE: I have not been able to find the original source for this quote. I...

June 04, 2013

The holiness of belonging to *this* world (with @BrianZahnd)

In Brian Zahnd's May 26th sermon "New Creation (Not Evacuation)," he confronts the neo-Gnosticism of...

May 2013

May 30, 2013

Brian Zahnd on Cruciform Evangelism in Colossians 1:24

I was listening to Brian Zahnd's podcast Tuesday while waiting for the rest of my...

May 25, 2013

Why Tony Jones (and other emergents) should read Amos Yong’s Pentecostal theology

I posted recently about the debacle that Tony Jones got into partly because of his...

May 24, 2013

Is Pope Francis a universalist heretic?

Oh mercy! The evangelicals have so wanted to make peace with the Catholics, because they...

May 24, 2013

A 140 char response to tragedy is always bad pastoral care

It doesn't matter whether Rachel Held Evans took John Piper's tweet about the Oklahoma tornadoes...

May 22, 2013

How in charge is God when tragedy strikes?

I knew it was coming: the Piper tweet, this time quoting Job in response to...

May 19, 2013

“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (salvation AS Pentecost)

To prepare for Pentecost, I've been reading Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong's The Spirit Poured Out...

May 18, 2013

The Despised Ones: A Bloggers Collective

You may have noticed that an eery looking emblem recently appeared on my blog with...

May 17, 2013

Tony Jones & the white emergentsia’s “Pentecostal problem”

Because I like to go against the grain, I wanted to try to stick up...

May 15, 2013

In defense of the “so-called” Wesleyan quadrilateral and the experiential breath of God

The latest theater in the Methodist proxy war over homosexuality has involved attacks here and...