On November 2, I had the privilege of preaching at Morning Prayer at Wycliffe College in the faculty preaching series, entitled “The Word is Near You: Seeds of Reformation.” It was a privilege to join the distinguished faculty of Wycliffe College in this Reformation-themed preaching series and to preach from a pulpit that has, over the years, welcomed an impressive collection of archbishops, leading preachers, and distinguished theologians. My assigned text was Matthew 28: 16-20. You can listen to a recording of the sermon here. For those not familiar with Wycliffe, in the first few sentences of the sermon I am riffing on the titles of books written by members of the Wycliffe faculty.
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The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
In 1994, the historian Mark Noll published his now famous work, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. In the very first sentence of the opening chapter, Noll goes right for the jugular: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”[1. Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 1.] Noll’s thesis seems to have been anticipated in some ways by the Anglican cleric and evangelical leader John Stott, who wrote the following in his 1982 book on preaching (although it should be noted that Stott’s purview seems to be much broader than evangelicalism, extending to Western Christendom as a whole): (more…)
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The Good News of “You Shall Not Murder”
Thomas White concludes his theological reflection upon the commandment “You shall not murder” in his recent commentary on Exodus with this striking paragraph: (more…)
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95 at 500
The following is an extract from a sermon I preached this past Sunday at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Scarborough. The service made use of some of the liturgical resources prepared conjointly by the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Christian Reformed Church to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It is not a scholarly treatment, nor does it exhaustively treat the complex and often ambiguous legacy of the Reformation. Rather, it simply attempts to acquaint people with the person of Martin Luther and some of the early developments associated with the beginning of the Reformation in Germany. (more…)
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Ring in the New Year with Bonhoeffer
For those who have been living with the guilt of a string of broken New Year’s resolutions to study the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 2018 may be your year to break the slide! Starting on January 2, 2018, I will be teaching a five-day intensive intercession course on “The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer” at Tyndale Seminary. Here’s the course description to whet your appetite: (more…)
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Reformation Resources
On September 16, 2017, the Centre for Mentorship and Theological Reflection hosted a special event at Tyndale Seminary to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It was a rich evening of fellowship and reflection upon the life, theology, and legacy of Martin Luther. Video of the evening’s presentations have now been posted online. (more…)
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Robert Jenson: Servant of the Church, Evangelical and Catholic
September 5 marked the passing of the Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson. Widely regarded as the leading American theologian of his generation, and perhaps, as some maintain, the greatest American theologian since Jonathan Edwards, Jenson was a leading influence in advocating for a theological renewal of the church that was, at one and the same time, profoundly evangelical and catholic. (more…)
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Upcoming Conference Presentation on Canadian Evangelical Ecclesiology
I am going to be presenting a paper engaging with the work of some emerging Canadian evangelical theologians at an upcoming interdisciplinary theology conference in Rochester, NY, hosted by Northeastern Seminary and the Canadian-American Theological Association. The conference, to be held October 20-21, is entitled, “Evangelical Theology: New Challenges, New Opportunities.”
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Newbigin on the Challenge of Preaching Christ Today
In the 18th Joseph Smith Memorial Lecture delivered at Overdale College in Birmingham, England in 1979, published as a pamphlet under the title “Preaching Christ Today”, Lesslie Newbigin suggested that the crucial issue facing preachers today is discerning the proper relationship between Law and Gospel. (Interestingly, this was also a pressing concern for Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his seminarians in the mid-30s.) (more…)
