Category: Theology

What Does It Mean To Be Evangelical?

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During this past election season their was much talk about the “Evangelical” vote.  Across the blogosphere, news shows, and newspapers “Evangelical” leaders where quoted and paraded forward to be representatives of the Evangelical Community.  The only problem with this is that sometimes the people wouldn’t be Evangelical but Fundamentalist (since the rise of Islamic and Christian extremism no one wants to identify as “Fundamentalist.” Instead, they all call themselves Evangelicals). Fuller Theological Seminary is identified Read More …

I Believe in Hell

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I’ve had the urge to write this post because recently I have been at gatherings with pastors and seminarians where the topic of hell was raised (mainly due to the recent lectionary texts that mention it). In every one of these gatherings, there was a small contingent of people who gave a little dismissive smirk, nod, and wink when hell was mentioned-as if to say that’s a cute antiquated piece of Christianity that we shouldn’t Read More …

A response to “The Joys & Pains of Spiritual Growth.”

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A friend asked me what I thought about this article- Youth Pastor Panel: The Joys & Pains of Spiritual Growth.  Here is my response: I think that self-care is an extremely important issue for people in ministry.  Our job in ministry is to walk with people in their spiritual journeys and guide them along God’s path.  So, I appreciate that this article realizes that in order to do this, the minister must first care for their own walk with Read More …

5 Tips for Choosing a Church (For the Non-Church Goer)

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This week I challenged readers to write their own tips on choosing a church- How to Choose a Church (A Challenge).  It’s really easy to pull an article from the blogosphere, dismantle it, and move on to the next article.  I don’t want to do that.  I want to critique, contribute, and get critiqued. So here is my offering for non-church goers on how they should choose a church. 1. Talk to your friends. This Read More …

How to choose a Church (A Challenge)

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This week I was led to this article A Non-Churchgoer’s Guide For Finding A Church For Your Family. I was quite interested in what the author would have to say about how to choose a church.   This article however was not helpful at all since it was filled with all kinds of assumptions not based on how churches actually are. First, I want to say that I really liked Mr. Nick Shell’s article 8 Non-Religious Read More …

Writing Something Substanative About God

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#progGOD Challenge #1 This is in response to Tony Jones blog post A challenge to Liberal Bloggers I agree with Tony  wholeheartedly. …progressives have a God-talk problem. That is, progressives write lots of books and blog posts about social issues, the church, culture, and society. But we don’t write that much about God. That is, we don’t say substantive things about who God is, what God does, etc. I graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary and Read More …

Movie Theology (Cowboys and Aliens)

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A couple nights ago I had the pleasure of watching Cowboys and Aliens. If you’re like me, you see more movies on Netflix and Red Box then you do on the big green. So, this may be a day late and a dollar short because of how far removed it is from the theatre showing. Here is the movie’s tagline according to IMDB (to be read in the voice of the action movie voiceover guy), Read More …

Liberal Legalism

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On this New Year’s day I only have one thing on my mind.  I admit it’s kind of random for the first post of the year–legalism.  I have been kicking this idea around in my head so I decided to write on it. If your looking for definitions on legalism you can find it here, here, and here, so I won’t offer a definition beyond these. I became very familiar with legalism when I attended a Read More …

Sin Boldly (Did Luther Really Mean It The Way We Use It Today?)

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At PLTS, a popular phrase quoted is two words from Martin Luther.  Students will triumphantly announce something like, “Well, Luther tells us to SIN BOLDLY.” It seems it is more often than not used as an excuse to allow sins (not Sin) to continue in the life of the believer.  It has become a license to allow breaking the commandments–behaviors that transgress the way God would have us live as members of the Kingdom of God Read More …