Evangelicalism
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Kenton Sparks’ Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture cuts to the heart of how Christians understand revelation and the truth of the Bible. This is a more popularly pitched version of an argument that Sparks, a professor of biblical studies at Eastern University, made in his book God’s Word Read more
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Those who follow such things know that there’s an ongoing debate in the evangelical world between “egalitarians” and “complementarians.” As you might guess, the former believe that men and women are equal–at least in the sense relevant to things like church leadership, while the latter maintain that men and women have “complementary” roles–with women playing Read more
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I’ve argued before that the question of a “historical” Adam and Eve and the related question of a “historical” Fall is not a “gospel issue.” That is to say, universal human sinfulness is such a self-evident fact that the question of its origin is secondary. The gospel speaks to this phenomenon of universal sinfulness with Read more
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I came across this letter of C.S. Lewis’s on the blog Undeception: Dear Mr. Beversluis, Yes. On my view one must apply something of the same sort of explanation to, say, the atrocities (and treacheries) of Joshua. I see the grave danger we run by doing so; but the dangers of believing in a God Read more
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Scot McKnight of Jesus Creed (the book and the blog) has a new book out called The King Jesus Gospel, which purports to recover the “original good news.” What does this mean? I haven’t read the book, but on his blog, McKnight says that the way we typically think about the gospel–as a scheme for Read more
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Former senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon passed away this week at the age of 89. He was one of the last of the liberal Republicans–someone who bucked his party on many issues. But Hatfield wasn’t simply a liberal Republican in the Nelson Rockefeller mold. He was a devout evangelical Christian, a virtual pacifist, and a Read more
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Mainliners can be awfully smug in their (our) attitude toward evangelicals. There is a certain “Lord, I thank you that I am not like other people” syndrome in the way mainliners view evangelicals. In some mainline churches I’ve been in, evangelicals are the perpetual “other” over against whom we define ourselves. We’re NOT conservative, NOT Read more
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I’ve been reading some of the remembrances of John Stott, the Church of England pastor and evangelical icon who passed away today at the age of 90. One of the most striking things is that Stott seems to be fondly remembered by nearly everyone across the spectrum of evangelicalism. He combined theological orthodoxy (even conservatism) Read more
A Thinking Reed 