My “Christian Ethics” course this semester is following an innovative schedule where students gather on campus for five full days spread out over the course of the semester. While having three weeks between classes may impact upon continuity and classroom dynamics, it does present the opportunity to have students engage with significant works in preparation for each class. My students are currently in the midst of reading Norman Wirzba’s From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving the World. Wirzba, who teaches at Duke, is one of the leading voices working at the intersection of theology and ecology. While there is much to commend in the book, I was particularly taken by the following passage describing what Wirzba refers to as “iconic seeing”: Continue reading Iconic Perception
Category Archives: Quotes
The “Evangelical” Crisis
Alan Jacobs, an influential Christian public intellectual who teaches at Baylor University, has published an important piece that traces the morphing of the word “evangelical” in public discourse. He describes how the term that once referred to a vital, denomination-crossing, renewing impulse within Protestant Christianity has now in the public imagination come to refer to a political and social movement characterized by nationalistic sentiments and a vague religiosity. Continue reading The “Evangelical” Crisis
The Preacher as Bridge-Builder: A Misguided Metaphor
One of the more prominent homiletical metaphors that is operative in the imaginations of preachers of many different stripes and backgrounds is that of the preacher as a bridge-builder between the ancient world of Scripture and our current cultural moment. Through careful rhetorical engineering, the preacher is able to construct a bridge that is capable of carrying the biblical freight across the chasm of the ages, in the process demonstrating its relevance for today. Continue reading The Preacher as Bridge-Builder: A Misguided Metaphor
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. ↩