Michael Gorman, a New Testament scholar whose work I have found to be both insightful and refreshing, has recently published a fictional letter from the Apostle Paul to Christians in the United States in the Christian Century. I heard Gorman present an earlier version of this letter during an address at a theological conference at Northeastern University in Rochester, NY, a couple of years ago, which was subsequently published in the Canadian Theological Review. It is well worth the read. I will be incorporating it into my upcoming Christian Ethics course. You can access it here.
All posts by Robert Dean
Radio Interview and Other “Breaking News”
Upon returning from holidays last week, I found myself thrust back into a series of meetings and obligations. As things settle down, I hope to catch up on a few posts that I have had in mind. This past Sunday I had the privilege of preaching at First Presbyterian Church in Kenora. While some significant challenges lay before the city of Kenora, it is a beautiful spot and home to my family’s favourite town mascot/statue: Husky the Muskie! This morning, in the wake of Tullian Tchividjian’s announcement that he was starting a new church, I talked with Alissa Moffit at CHVN 95.1 FM in Winnipeg about the potential of pastors being restored to ministry after abusing their authority. You can read excerpts from the interview here.
Performing the Scriptures
Interestingly, after writing yesterday’s post that included a footnote gesturing towards my reservations towards the historical critical method employed by biblical scholars, I felicitously happened upon this passage from New Testament scholar Stephen Barton: Continue reading Performing the Scriptures
The Pulpit is a Prow
“Yet the preacher of the gospel of grace cannot be a mere minstrel, grinning good cheer in an age of despair. The preacher’s struggle against the darkness of this present world must be furnished with a full kit: the Bible, the sword of the Spirit, understandable now as it was not understood prior to modernity;1 the history of God’s peaceable Israel old and ongoing (called in Scripture the preparation of the gospel of peace); and supremely (though like the Trinity never so named in Scripture) the primary theology that gives our sermon its center, its raison d’être, its point. Continue reading The Pulpit is a Prow
- While not denying the gains of modern biblical scholarship, I would be inclined to see the legacy of the historical critical method of interpreting the Bible in more ambiguous terms than McClendon seems to at this point. ↩
Hans Boersma on Handling Scripture
There is an excellent essay by Hans Boersma in the current issue of First Things entitled “Fear of the Word” that grapples with some of the fundamental struggles and assumptions about Scripture that haunt preachers today. Here’s an excerpt: Continue reading Hans Boersma on Handling Scripture
The Fundamental Love Story
I was recently politely chided by a friend for not posting anything on the blog in recent days. I’ll have more to say in the days to come about some of the projects I’ve been working on, but in the meantime here is a beautiful and compelling passage from the first volume of James McClendon’s three volume Systematic Theology: Continue reading The Fundamental Love Story