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Some of you may not know that I moderate and contribute at Boarsheadtavern.com, one of the longest running group blogs in the blogosphere. Often, we will have a question addressed to the group as a “Question of the Day.” Yesterday, one of the “fellows” asked a question about how a Christian married couple could resolve [...]

2 Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 16 From now [...]

iMonk 101 posts are replays of previous Internet Monk posts.
This piece comes from February of ‘07 and was written in response to comments by then NBA player Tim Hardaway about gays. I’ve never republished it. Hardaway apologized for his comments, but Jewish pundit Michael Medved wrote a column that gave the Jesus-subtracted culture war view [...]

Here’s a previous IM essay on this topic: “What Do Gays and Lesbians Hear? (When They Are With Evangelicals.)”
UPDATE: I appreciate Andrew’s kind words in the comments. I have to confess that I’m a little disappointed that the emphasis of Andrew’s book- relationships and conversations- seems to be lost, and the discussion is drawn immediately [...]

Without any intro, I’d like to get right into what I would be saying about Matthew 18 if I were lecturing on the “What does Matthew 18 tell us about church discipline?”
I’d begin by noting that the church discipline material in I Corinthians 5 predates Matthew 18 in composition. Assuming Markan priority, it’s safe to [...]

Down through the years, I’ve been part of a few in-church discussions about church discipline. They were all memorable. Almost everyone was against it and treated me like I was going off the deep end for bringing it up. Being against church discipline was an issue worth yelling over, and I’ve been yelled at more [...]

UPDATE: CNN has the same story as USA Today, but with more reference to the academic discussion and the psychology of myth perpetuation. Evangelicals who are angry at me for posting this should just skip it.
Here’s a detailed review of a book by Dave Cullen that is looking at the law enforcement information.
“These are not [...]

This post is from November of ‘04. It’s a little quote from Martin Luther that’s the kind of anti-legalism/moralism injection all of us need occasionally. Some of you won’t like it for better reasons than others. I like it because Luther gets Jesus and isn’t afraid to be provocative to help me get him too.
This [...]

I have purposely avoided watching Jesus Camp until this week. One of my Advanced classes is using it to write a response paper to The Screwtape Letters, so over three days we watched it, with some debriefing every day.
In this class of ten, several students could relate to various aspects of the film. One young [...]

No pictures this time. Just a few thoughts to close out the topic.
Evangelicals have no serious arguments to make against the use of “gear.” We’re up to our ears in our own versions of the stuff. We can point out the differences in what we believe is going on, but we’re no innocents. God using [...]

UPDATE: Darrell Young’s post is now included. Read it!
The Evangelical Untouchables are seven diverse evangelicals who will give us a window into what’s happening in evangelicalism today.
Who are the Evangelical Untouchables?
Michael Patton is the director of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries and is one of the teachers on The Theology Program.
Tony Kummer is on staff at [...]

The commonwealth of Kentucky where I reside is currently completely captivated by the drama surrounding the firing of University of Kentucky Men’s basketball coach Billy Gillispie. Gillispie had only been at UK for two years. Both years featured lackluster performances in comparison to fan expectation, but Gillispie was just starting to recruit his own players. [...]

Rather random. Incomplete. Just things I keep thinking.
1. I’m convinced that some of the news media (***cough*** Fox ***cough***) are using the financial situation to create a “panic” audience. That is, they are putting on every extreme, doomsday voice they can, they are ignoring larger context, they are keeping their audiences convinced this is [...]

One of the things I really don’t like about run-of-the-mill evangelical spirituality is the assumption that we’re all basically clones of each other. Cheerful clones. Mentally healthy clones. Good family clones. Conservative political clones. Happy at church clones. Like the same music clones. Clones who cope well. Clones who think alike. Clones who can take [...]

The Original Talk Hard: Defending the Role of the Critic in Christianity. Lots I would change in that essay, but it still holds up 6 years or so later.
Recently, I received an email from someone who has been a longtime reader of this blog, giving his reasons for being a regular reader and generous supporter.
This [...]