The Bible, through a Scientist’s Eyes, part two Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible by John Polkinghorne • • • “Development,” chapter two of John Polkinghorne’s small book on the Bible, is likely to be one of the more controversial sections in Testing Scripture. Whether you and I end up agreeing with him or [...]
The Bible, through a Scientist’s Eyes
17 Jan by
The Bible, through a Scientist’s Eyes, part one Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible by John Polkinghorne • • • Today, we begin walking through a new book by John Polkinghorne on the Bible. I believe this will give us a unique vantage point from which to consider the Scriptures? Why? — because Polkinghorne [...]
IM Book Review: Simply Jesus
10 Jan by
IM Book Review Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters by N.T. Wright, HarperOne • • • “It is time, I believe, to recognize not only who Jesus was in his own day, despite his contemporaries’ failure to recognize him, but also who he is, and [...]
IM Book Review: The Great Emergence
4 Jan by
If I were a certain kind of preacher or Bible teacher, I might try to make some “spiritual law” out of this. As it is, I will take it as a interpretive way of looking at history that may help people of faith who are concerned about the Church discern some instructive patterns and enable [...]
Christianity In America: A Crisis, or, The Evangelical Emperor Has No Clothes (as found on your library shelf)
15 Dec by
A few weeks—ok, months—ago I started writing on what I see in general when I look at today’s evangelical church in America. I called the series The Naked Emperor. I have been kept from revisiting this by work and illness and … oh, lots of things. I do plan to finish what I started, but [...]
Dissident Discipleship: A Book Overview
15 Dec by
Recently I read the book Dissident Discipleship by David Augsburger. He wrote it in 2006, but I think his topic is evergreen: What makes someone a true disciple of Jesus? Augsburger tells it from an Anabaptist perspective. Once we give assent to Christ’s lordship, recognize the necessity for and effectiveness of his shed blood to atone [...]
Good News is Just the Beginning
2 Nov by
Over the past decade, a cottage industry has grown and and is now flourishing among American Christian leaders and teachers that has focused on defining the Gospel. Many factors account for this. We live in a decidedly non-doctrinaire age, and the “Gospel” discussion has formed in response to that. Through the influence of the church [...]
Prepositions Matter
23 Sep by
“…the grammarian’s last daughter opened her bag. “Out came the prepositions: of, to, from, with, at, by, in, under, over, and so on. When she’d put them into the bag, they had seemed like hooks or angles. Now, departing in orderly rows, they reminded her of ants. Granted, they were large ants, each one the [...]
IM Book Review: Counterfeit Gospels
29 Aug by
By Chaplain Mike In my opinion, Counterfeit Gospels: Rediscovering the Good News in a World of False Hope, by Trevin Wax, represents the best kind of thinking and presentation that evangelicalism has to offer the broader church today at a level that pastors and serious laypeople can appreciate and find useful. It is written in [...]
IM Book Review: Home
19 Aug by
By Chaplain Mike And now here he is, Glory thought, haggard and probationary, with little of his youth left to him except the wry elusiveness, secretiveness, that he did in fact seem to wear on his skin. He stood propped against the counter with his arms folded and watched his father while his father pondered [...]
