Theology for the Masses

I changed the site’s skin the other day.  I was just sick of the dark screen and was yearning for something that looked bright, clean, and readable.  In addition to this, I added a couple of features recently that I want to alert the readership to.  Firstly, when you are viewing an individual post, you will be able to see related posts in the sidebar. 

Secondly, when you are leaving a comment and you are addressing someone specifically, try using an @ and their name.  It’ll link to them.  See this comment for an example of this.

Beyond that, there is only one other thing I’d point you to.  If you are a windows user, it might be really helpful to try out Windows Live Writer for publishing blog posts.  It can handle multiple accounts (wordpress, blogger, xanga, wordpress.com, etcetera) and makes everything a breeze.

As of yesterday, the latest Christian Carnival is up over at Lingamish, a blog by a Bible translator living in Africa.

The Christian Carnival is a great way to a) find some of the best posts on Christianity/theology out there and b) find some of the best Christian blogs. It is a weekly publication consisting of author submissions that are Christian in nature.

Christian Carnival 193: Lions in Africa edition

Some of the highlights:

• Our Tom on I Timothy 2 and the Artemis Cult
• Fighting Despondency with Faith by Light Along the Journey considers modeling Jesus’ way of dealing with despondency.
• Common prayer is far too uncommon by Lingamish – on the corporate worship that is common prayer

It has been a busy week. While there were only five posts, we have had 48 comments on a variety of topics. Most of the discussion has centered around 1) the nature of God in relation to time and his ability to change and 2) the egalitarian / complementarian views of gender relations.

What I have enjoyed most about our discussions so far is the asking of questions. Those on each side of the debates have been asking excellent questions that have aided in understanding the problems with each view. I am looking forward to a construction of the views that take into account the objections raised.

Nothing really pertinent here, just a fyi and an announcement.

FYI – There is now a religion in the news/blogosphere widget in the sidebar. Check’em out!

Announcement – We hope to have a podcast up by the end of the month. Then again, I also hope to have a thesis chapter written by then as well, so it might be a bit late. We hope to make it a regular feature around here… by regular I mean once a month.

So the title has nothing to do with the content of the post. Despite this, there are some things I want to share.

1. The spam filter seems to be gobbling up everything it sees. It snagged one of JR’s and two of Hank’s comments. If you are having problems with comments not showing up, please let one of use know.
2. Things might be quiet around here for the next few days. Hank and I are traveling to Chicago to attend WizardCon.
3. If you have not, please check out Hank’s post on God’s motivation in creating. We are getting some good stuff in the comments.
4. After you check out #3, then head over to the Christian Alert, where E. I. Sanchez continues a discussion on Inerrancy and Infallibility.
5. Our very own Brad Andrews of relevintage has announced a kick off event at Missouri Baptist University for their new Worship Arts major called “abandoned, worship as life.” It looks to be very cool. Well, not only cool, which is nice, but also a start in the right direction for the Church and its attitudes and methods in the worship of the Almighty.
6. Speaking of Brad, he, along with Casey have and will have had new additions to their respective families this summer. I thank and praise Jesus for both of them.
7. After you are finished with #4 after finishing up #3, head on over to JR’s site for some good discussion on Christians and non-violence. It is amazing. On a side note, JR and Tom’s sites have helped me to being to get over my Xanga snobbery.

I recently was looking at the upcoming semester. With the amount of research and writing I need to do on my thesis combined with my class load and TA duties, there is little time left to devote to this (or other sites).

As such, if you or if you know of anyone that might be interested in contributing to this site, please let me know. Please don’t be shy.

If you have noticed, posting is down quite a bit lately. I can only vouch for Hank and myself, but it is the last few weeks of school, and things are getting crazy. In the absense of my posting, I’ll point you to a good discussion on when it is appropriate to baptize someone, more specifically children.

UnworthySaints.com » Blog Archive » When is it appropriate to Baptize Children

One of the favorite TV shows among the MassTheology authors is the ABC show Lost. I would characterize the show, but I don’t really know what is going on! Anyway, there are lots of Lost theories floating out there and lots of corresponding discussion. In one of these discussion threads, we were used as a side point: Dharma Secrets :: “God loves you like he loved Jacob” — the brainwash video.

I just thought that was kinda cool.

Have finally ported over the b2e install to wordpress. I had to manually assign each post its author, but I am finally finished with it.

Authors, your user name and password should be the same. You new login url is http://masstheology.com/wp-admin/

Let me know if you have any questions. Wordpress should be easier to use and maintain than the B2evolution install was. Oh yeah, everyone will need to re-vote in the poll.

Also, there is a really cool plugin, called Scripturizer, that automatically converts all Bible references to a link to Bible Gateway. So even in the comments, any verse that is typed is automatically linked to at Bible Gateway. The only problem with this is that I have to set a standard version. If you manually want to link to a different version, that can be done. I am not sure what version to link to. I have it narrowed down to the ESV, NLT, NASB, and the NRSV. I like different aspects of each one over the others. I want to see if I can modify the plugin to show two or more versions at once. Update I was able to hack the plugin to show multiple versions. Now it shows the NLT, ESV, NIV, and NASB at once.

Now the site will allow for stand-alone software publishing. Not a whole lot of software works with B2evolution, especially with its changing hooks. Word 07 and w.bloggar are some programs that allow for offline post publishing.

In addition to using an offline publishing platform, you can also use Scribefire to write your posts if you use the Firefox browser.

In about 40 minutes, I am getting some wisdom teeth cut out, so I won’t be blogging for a few days.

I am getting pretty busy with school right now, so I can’t really post much or in depth. Anything anyone wants to talk about? Feel free to post what you have been studying lately. If you are a reader and have something you would like to post, we would love to have you as a guest author.

Henry Thomas (Hank) and his family have recently lost someone very dear to them. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Congradulations to Hank and Brad for getting picked up this week by the ESV Bible Blog.

Brad was picked up for his post, “a question of accessibility,” where Brad argues for more depth in songs as a way to facilitate deeper worship.

Hank was picked up for his post, Translation Issues, where he suggests that we should utilize Sunday school to ground Christians in Greek and Hebrew in order to by-pass some of the translation shortcomings in every translation.

If you could pick one the these three books to study or hear a sermon series preached on, which one would you pick and why? The choices are 2 Corinthians; Galatians; Philippians. I picked these three because they really interest me right now and I am going to preach through one of them. I just want to know which one you authors would like to read/study/preach.

Today is the anniversary of “Theology for the Masses.” So far we have had over 150 posts and 560 comments with over 30,000 page views, I don’t think that is too shabby. I want to take some time going over the goals and future aspirations of this site.

This site was born over many discussions between Travis and myself. We were both employed at Boone National Savings and Loan. We worked at the branch located inside a Hy-Vee. There was lots of downtime and our discussions often turned towards matters of history, philosophy, and theology.

Anyway, many words were spilled between and the table of our disagreements. I hatched the idea for this site, thinking that we could get our ideas out where one could carefully consider and respond to them. While Travis does not post much anymore, I know he is considering starting up again; he has been very busy at school and no longer as internet access at work.

We currently have authors from all over the Christian spectrum. We also have one heck of a guest commenter in Puritan Bob. We have reformed, non-reformed, conservative, progressive, literalists, non-literalists. Half the time in Christian arguments, I don’t know where the other side is coming from. Thus, the goal here is to get everyone talking. There is no theological requirement to post here save for one’s love of Christ.

With that said, I think this last year has been a success. From our original group of myself, Andy, Dave, Kevin, and Travis; we have added Brad, Casey, and Henry Thomas (Hank). I would like to add more people to that list. If you or anyone you know wants to be an author, please drop me a line. You can use the email function of this post to contact me.

I plan on doing some site upgrades in the next few weeks, the first of which is splitting the database off from hundiejo.com. Right now both sites share the same b2evolution installation. This is why members never seemed yo be logged in when viewing the main site and why there are no editing links on posts and comments for the members. This will be fixed after the split-off.

While I am at it, I am also going to upgrade to the latest b2evolution software. There are some nifty features that come with that release.

Also, we have seen the hosting of one site, Think Wink, Hank’s personal blog. I am opening up my offer of free hosting to anyone that would like it (Casey, I am looking at you). You get a free subdomain and 1GB of storage. I’ll install a blogging platform (wordpress or b2e) and a photo gallery for you.

Anyway, it has been a great year and keep up the posting and comments!