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Let Men Their Songs Employ
That’s right: Men. Not “Let us our songs employ,” or “Let all their songs employ,” but men. That’s how Isaac Watts wrote it back in the eighteenth century, when he wrote Joy to the World. This line...
View ArticleThe Pope Says to Blog
The news today is that Pope Benedict XVI is calling on priests to enter the blogosphere and upload their ministry. The official statement is “The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New...
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The Power of the Word Read Aloud
What Christians usually do is, they read the Bible out loud and then preach a sermon about it. That’s the normal, all-but-universal pattern around the world and back through Christian history. If you...
View ArticleLove is a Noun
One of the many clichés of book titling is the “____ is a verb” trick. It’s supposed to grab your attention, be a little disorienting, and suggest that _____ is full of unexpected action and energy....
View ArticleTop Ten Books, Fred’s Theology Edition
These top ten lists are so fascinating to read, especially the lists that mingle great books with those admittedly not-so-great books that made a big dent on the list-maker at a certain age. Those...
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Hey Everybody, Let’s Sursum a Little Corda, ‘kay?
Last week, pastor Trevin Wax posted an interesting blog entry about the way serious preaching demands serious presentation. Specifically, Wax is watching a trend of churches “focusing on the...
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Donald Bloesch (1928-2010)
(Apologies for cross-posting from my home blog, Scriptorium Daily. I thought the passing of Bloesch ought to be noted over here for the audience at First Things’ Evangel blog as well.) Donald Bloesch,...
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More Gnostic Than Thou
This is an attempt to revisit the terms of a contemporary theological cliché. I don’t know who invented the argument that anybody lower than you on the sacramental realism scale is supposed to be...
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I Guess That’s Kind of My Pope There
I wasn’t able to follow all the news, never mind all the news-analysis and pundit chatter, about the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the UK this past week. I knew it was happening, and had a sense of...
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YUBA Theology
Seems like there’s a whole lot of Newman talk going on around here lately. It’s like he’s been beatified or something! I can’t exactly get behind that, but I can add my admiration of Newman’s...
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Getting Along with NT Wright, Without Really Trying
I was driving cross-country in the summer of 1995, at a time when the music of Hootie and the Blowfish was inescapable. My wife and I listened to the radio from Kentucky to California, and the...
View ArticleWhy No Narnian Nativity?
I know the Chronicles of Narnia are not straightforward allegory, but I also know that the stone table of Aslan is the cross of Christ (depending on what the meaning of “is” is). And without any...
View ArticleReclaimed: The Theology of Adoption
In 1864, Scottish theologian Robert Candlish gave a series of lectures in Edinburgh on the theology of the Fatherhood of God. As he ended those lectures, he said “I do so with the feeling that, however...
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First Steps Toward a Theology of California
There’s an exciting new project called Theological Engagement with California Culture that is taking its first steps toward coming to terms with the entity that is California. Of course I think it’s...
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Elizabeth Johnson’s Quest for the Living God
Last week a controversial book of theology was condemned by well-established critics who cautioned the public that the book did not present Christian doctrine in an accurate, biblical, or traditional...
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