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Before getting into the substance of this essay, I want to mention how little I care for much of the terminology I’m going to use.
As a Christian humanist, there are two sources for my view of human beings: The image of God in creation, and the image of humanity in the incarnation/resurrection of Jesus. I […]

NOTE: I will not publish hateful, conspiratorial comments. You can critique, but be respectful.
“You most faithful readers know that ultimately, I’m a fan of Mark Driscoll. Fan — can’t help it. Somebody has said that there isn’t a “Billy Graham” for 21st century Christianity, and I totally disagree — I think Driscoll is in […]

Answering the question “Where can you get your Jesus?” is very important.

Many of the divisions among Christians are actually a commentary on the relationship of the person of Jesus to various means of “accessing” or “localizing” Jesus. In other words, the question “Where is Jesus?” is an extremely important question and the claim to have […]

UPDATE: Go into the comments and read the post by Pastor Scott Dontanville. Just go read it.
For those of you who are going to write me a hurt/angry note saying I’m picking on your church, I’m not. And if I am, I don’t know you anyway, so there’s no need to complain.
I just spent ten […]

Since I’m newly installed in my permanent pew near the back row of my local SBC church, I’ve been trying to think good thoughts about evangelicals. Given the history of this blog and the general tone of my thinking about Christianity, this has taken some discipline. It’s been remarkable, however, how quickly I have remembered […]

Steve Sensenig is a blogger (theologicalmusingsblog.com) and contributor to many good blog discussions. He’s also a musician who has served in various capacities in several different ministries in a wide range of styles from very traditional to very contemporary. Steve is a recording artist, and has also spent some time in the Christian music […]

Studying Acts with my students, it’s freshly clear to me that the immediate struggle of the early Christians was not only, or even particularly, theological, but practical.
How do we live out, in the church, family, community and world, the significance of Jesus NOW?
What kind of behavior, actions and community appear in “”the Kingdom of God” […]

Mark DeVine, theology professor from Midwestern Seminary (and a man who knows his Barth), has looked seriously and deeply at the emerging church and suggests some directions for SBC interaction, avoidance and further study. A measured and competent essay, worth your time. [Or you can watch the video below. It’s more of a summary of […]

Here are the previous six posts in the Evangelical Anxieties series. There will be several more.
This isn’t even close to the final version I want of this post, but I may not get back to it for a while. So this will have to do for now.
Worrying about our children has been an evangelical preoccupation […]

“Before I restart the “Evangelical Anxieties series, here are words from an atheist who visited some 30 churches.
Clearly, most churches have aligned themselves against non-religious people. By adopting this stance, Christians have turned off the people I would think they want to connect with. The combative stance I’ve observed is an […]

Christians always live in a culture. Sometimes that culture has been, in some way, a “Christian” culture. In most instances, Christians have existed in a culture that did not share an appreciation or endorsement of their worldview.
Determining how to live in culture, and to what extent that culture will influence us, has always been a […]

There’s not a lot that I like about the Appalachian mountain version of Christianity that surrounds me here in southeastern Kentucky, but at the top of a short list is their attitude toward the end of the world. They aren’t afraid of it.
They have a good idea what’s going to go on. They believe some […]

Evangelical Anxieties is a series of posts on the growing phenomenon of fear as a major component of the faith of evangelical Christians.
It might seem that the subject of judgment is so similar to the subject of hell that a separate post would be inappropriate. In some ways, that would be true, but the general […]

Evangelical Anxieties is a series of posts dealing with the issue of fear- as experience and motivation- in evangelicalism. See the category for these posts to read them all.
If there is a “fundamental” question to this series of posts, this is it. Does the doctrine of hell make Christianity a religion of fear?
If you believe […]

I continue my look at the role of fear in evangelicalism with some thoughts on how the people of God, both now and in the Biblical past, have faced the choice between fear and faith.
Somewhere in the South, an evangelical Christian mom is suing her child’s school system over the use of the Harry Potter […]