Honzo March 24th, 2008
We recieve quite a few search hits either looking for seminaries or asking about them. As a person who is wieghing seminary vs secular NT PhD programs, I wanna ask our readers and other authors a few questions on this topic.
1) What are some good seminaries? What are some ones that you would recomend staying away from? Why?
2) What do you look for in a seminary?
Hank March 10th, 2008
Here is a link to an excellent discussion of the whole debate on NPP and justification in Paul. Do enjoy this fascinating post.
I am curious about what the authors here might think of Dr. Ben Witherington’s comments on the New Perspective on Paul. Is this a good middle ground between the two sides?
Here is the article: The New Perspective on Paul and the Law– Reviewed
cheapham March 3rd, 2008
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:1-2
Does the Bible, specifically Genesis 1:1-2, support a doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing)? Would such a doctrine have made sense to ancient Israelites/early Christians? How does Gen. 1:1-2 fit into the schema of it’s contemporary ancient mediterranean understandings of the creation of the world? If something was there, then what was/is it? Further, what is really at stake in the answers to these questions?
I’m currently reading a lot about this in one of my classes and have some thoughts…but I’d like to see what you guys have. Certainly, those familiar with Hebrew could contribute much to our understanding of what the text itself (may) say(s).
tom February 26th, 2008
I became a Christian shortly before I turned 17. For some reason, in all God’s omniscience, he placed me in an Independent, Fundamentalist, King James Only, Baptist church. The next few posts will be memoirs regarding what I learned those few years as an Independent Baptist. It will concern not only my experiences and their doctrines, but also their heuristic devices – one of which is fear. I’ll not spend any time refuting the crap I’m going to write about - most of it is self-refuting anyway.
———-
Shortly after God saved me I purchased my first Christian music: Audio Adrenaline: Bloom. I didn’t know who AA was, I just knew I liked rock music and it was kind of cool to find some with Christian themes.* I also purchased, to my eternal regret, Carmen: Riot (but that’s a story for another time).
Elated at my acquisition, I told my pastor. Immediately I was reprimanded for buying such filth because Rock & Roll, of any kind, is sinful. Not being a very thoughtful teenager, and having just been introduced to this Christianity stuff, I accepted what he said. I went home and threw away all my rock CD’s: (just to name a few - Nirvana: Never Mind, Bush: 16 Stone, and Smashing Pumpkins: Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness**)
Interestingly, in an act of clandestine defiance, I didn’t throw away Bloom, but instead I went out and purchased Jesus Freak.
When I asked my pastor why all rock music was bad, he said 2 things:
1. Moses went up on the mountain to receive the law of God. When he came back down, Aaron had all the people worshiping a Golden Calf. While they were worshiping that Golden Calf, there was “a sound of war” in the camp. Now, Tom, what music sounds most like war? Rock music, of course. Anachronism, you wills see, is a continual theme for these folks.
2. The beat of Rock & Roll music is demonic. There are stories of missionaries who let their children buy Christian rock while on furlough, only to return to their post and have the natives tell them, “That’s the beat we used to use to conjure up demons.” You see, even Christian rock is demonic. To use Jr’s illustration, pray to God that if you get a flat tire, that the thudding sound doesn’t conjure a demon.
My pastor then proceeded to give me a number of CD’s by the Gaither Vocal Band, Gold City (I think that was their name), and Crimson Blood (or something like that). After listening to these CD’s, I concluded that if rock music was a tool of the Devil, certainly this crap must be the spawn of Satan. Apparently, though, while the beat of rock music conjures demons, the Country Western sound is acceptable
*Bloom was their last good CD.
** Obviously, I’ve not changed too much – I’m still spoon fed pop culture – except for freakin Nickelback, the musical equivalent of a turd floating in a punchbowl.
Hank February 21st, 2008
Discuss. What are you impressions about this patient and the chaplain sent to console him in his dying hour? I can’t help but think that there is something to what this patient was getting at. Postmodern “spirituality” and the weak Christianity we see (I am thinking of the Unitarian Universalist I saw with Honzo JR) doesn’t help when it comes down to it and a person needs to know that there is something on the other side and how to deal with their guilt that they have. I think this man points out that our souls cry out to know a transcendent God who is just and righteous as well as loving and forgiving. What do you guys think about this clip? I leave this open to where ever it takes us. It should be fun.
(H/T: Contemporary Calvinist)
Sorry Cheepham, I forgot that you can’t watch videos on youtube. Is there another site you can watch this clip that I can find for you?
Hank February 9th, 2008
The audio from the Theology Weekend is up at the Karis Blog. Dr. Tom Schreiner from Souther Baptist Theological Seminary spoke on the person and work of Jesus. I ended up only going to the Friday event with Honzo and JR. We had good times of fellowship before, during, and after. Check it out here.
Hank January 31st, 2008
I felt like we were just going to go down the same path as in another post about the historicity of Adam and whether or not sin and righteousness is imputed (I would say both are imputed because that is the very parallel that Paul is drawing out in Romans 5:12-21, and thus for this parallel to work Adam must be historical and his sin must be an actual event in history) on the Myth thread. So I just went ahead and posted this so that we could devote an entire thread to OS, picking up some where Brad left off, and Adam being historical.
By my reading of Calvin’s Institutes, he would not say that there is a specific gene, like modern science would understand "genetic," that contains sin. Rather Calvin points to Romans 8:20 and says that humanity is part of the creation (ἡ κτίσις ) that was subjected to futility. He also understands original sin not to be sin itself but rather it is the corruption (cf Romans 8:21 ESV "bondage to corruption") of the imagio dei that all humans have. Thus we who are in the image of Adam bear that corrupted image as well (Notice the parallel of "futility" [ματαιότητι] in 8:20 and "bondage to corruption" [τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς] in Romans 8:21), being part of the created order. Thus it was Adam’s sin that corrupted humanity’s being the image of God and it is God’s curse that confines all of creation under that corruption. Therefore the corruption of sin rules over all of the creation, including human beings and their wills–which is precisely what (that is the human will) Calvin argues to be what makes humans the bearers of the image of God. The creation is enslaved or in bondage (Gk. δουλείας) to the corruption that is removed when the bodies of the sons of God are redeemed. I think "genetic" is too much of a caricature of the Reformed view of OS, at least from Calvin’s point of view expounded in The Institutes that is.
Honzo December 14th, 2007
Given the shift in the way the Bible portrays Satan from a member of God’s royal court in Job to leader of the rebellion against the Kingdom of God with Paul, how do we, as Christians, construct our concept of Satan?
I think this is a great question on two levels, i) what the heck is Satan and how does it function? and ii) how do we interpret scriptures that have varying views on religious phenomena?
I have some suggestions, but I have a couple of hours to iron out a paper proposal, a panel proposal, and have lunch with Meredith, so I will leave mine later.
tom October 26th, 2007
I’ve come to appreciate Christianity Today over the last few years. While in college, when doctrine was merely an abstract idea waiting to be debated, I found CT quite lacking. But as I’ve grown in the Lord and matured as a person I’ve realized there are not only excellent theological articles in CT, but there are also other wonderful articles dealing with the practice of Christian virtues and social justice.
A recent CT did not disappoint. Inside were two excellent pieces on Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage, and an article written by John Piper dealing with Christians and the guilt of sexual failings.
As is often the case, CT closes with a single page write-up by Charles Colson. Now, don’t get me wrong, Colson has a lot to say to the Christian world at large. There is much value in his contributions, so the following is not borne from a desire to silence his voice. In fact, much of what he wrote, I’m in agreement with. He mourned the loss of a communal memory in the church – I mourn with him.
My disagreement with Colson, though, lies in where he places the blame. Colson, having a history of confusing Postmodernity and Relativism anyway, asks whether or not the church is still able to disciple our followers. He then goes on to site an extreme example of a church fallen to Relativism. Colson faults Relativism, and implicitly Postmodernity for the church’s inability to make disciples.
But I think he’s off base in this. Discipleship problems we face today are the excrement of Modernity, not Postmodernity. If we cannot teach our disciples truth now, it’s not because of Relativism, it’s because we lost a love for real truth under hegemonic forces of Modernity. Under Modernity we shackled Truth by only allowing it to speak through empirically demonstrable facts – as if facts and truth were the same thing.
Now we have a generation running the church who does not understand the nature of revelation because revelation is not empirically demonstrable. It’s not that people can’t be discipled because of Relativism. Sure, there are Relativists out there, but most people don’t live life that way. We simply can’t disciple because we’re a lazy group of people who don’t want to think outside of the box given to us by our modernistic culture. We’ve lost the ability to preach and teach the truth, not because Postmodernity drops meaning out of the Truth, but because Modernity redefined Truth. And a redefined Christian truth, especially one that down plays the nature of revelation, is a meaningless Christian truth.
So lets stop blaming Postmodernity (and yes, I know it has its own problems) for our problems. Colson says we’re “worshipping at the altar of the bitch goddess of relativism.” 1
But Relativism is only the symptom. Our idolatry goes much deeper.
Honzo June 18th, 2007
ricoblog :: Reading Multiple Translations is Good; or, Remembering that the Devil has No Power
This excerpt from Hermas also reminds me of a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Have you ever been in a Bible study where folks end up dwelling on “Satan” as if he is an omnipotent and omnipresent deity wreaking havoc in all areas of everyones life simultaneously? Its easy to think so; but I much rather think that many of the things in life that folks like to ascribe to “Satan” are really the result of our struggle against sin. I really don’t think the prince of darkness has much personal interest in me; he can surely focus his non-omniscience and non-omnipresence elsewhere to much greater effect. Instead of focusing on attribution of things to “Satan” whom I am much more comfy just calling “the enemy”, we should instead focus our efforts on believing and serving the one true God.
That just summed up my thoughts on the same pet peeve.
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