Post Category → Theology and Practice

Regarding Nebraska

Regarding Nebraska

I wrote this essay four years ago and it has been sitting on my hard drive awaiting further work ever since. I’ve recently concluded that it’s been so long now that I can’t “finish it” but only write a sequel. I’m working on that one now. But for the moment, I decided to finally hit “publish” on this, even if it’s now four years old and, as a result, a bit dated in parts. Do note that I quote a few people directly and these people have… we’ll say “colorful” ways of speaking.

I. “Love… has a body and a place.”

If you stand at the intersection of 48th and O in Lincoln and look north, you’ll see an Advanced Autoparts on your right next to a dilapidated (but still open) skate zone. To your left, you’ll see a CVS, Target, and a grocery store called Super Saver. If you walk a half mile north, you’ll come to 48th and Vine. From there, you can see a lingerie store in an old office building to your right. Across the street from it, you’ll see a Mexican restaurant called D’Leon’s that looks like a converted trailer home and a small, unobtrusive pet shop specializing in fish named, in classic Nebraskan fashion, “The Fish Store.” Continue reading →

Purity as Branding in the Evangelical Sub-Culture

Purity as Branding in the Evangelical Sub-Culture

After Ruth Graham’s interview with Joshua Harris last week in Slate there was, once again, the predictable round of discussion on social media and in the blogosphere about evangelical “purity culture,” as it existed in youth ministries during the late 80s through the early 2000s. The term purity culture is probably part of the problem here, as there isn’t just one “purity culture” in evangelicalism. Continue reading →

Are Religious Liberty Restrictions God’s Judgment on Racism?

Are Religious Liberty Restrictions God’s Judgment on Racism?

“I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.

– Amos 4:6

I did a number of medical school rotations in a Catholic hospital, which meant morning and evening prayers were offered over the hospital intercom every day. While “morning” prayer often came after I had already been at work for a few hours, it was still often a relief to have God’s mercy invoked on behalf of my patients and my colleagues. Continue reading →

Explainer: Divine Simplicity and the Trinitarian Controversy

Explainer: Divine Simplicity and the Trinitarian Controversy

Today I’m pleased to run this helpful guest post from my friend Andrew Fulford. Given the confusion that has surrounded the recent trinitarian debate, I thought it would be useful to find someone who could write a relatively straight forward post explaining the different terms being tossed around in this debate so far. So this post is going to be a Vox-style explainer answering some of the basic questions that have come up due to the controversy.

What is divine simplicity?

If you have followed the recent upheaval over the Trinity and gender, you may have asked yourself that question. This doctrine was once taken for granted by basically everyone, from the earliest days of the church through to the Reformation and beyond, and only became unfamiliar quite recently. I’m not going to be able to explain all the details of the idea here. My objective is twofold: to give a basic outline of the idea, and to explain why the tradition of classical Christian theism held to it. Continue reading →

Gender, Home Economies, and the Church, Ctd.

Gender, Home Economies, and the Church, Ctd.

There are three separate strands I want to pick up from yesterday’s post.

Being Fair to the Complementarians

First, I asked in the post that people would correct me if I was misrepresenting CBMW. Shane Anderson on Twitter obliged by pointing me toward this post from 2015 that is addressing the “what about wives who make more than their husbands?” question. (So, thank you Shane. :) )

Here are a few other posts at CBMW addressing some of the questions I was raising yesterday: Continue reading →

The Evangelical Gender Crack-Up

The Evangelical Gender Crack-Up

Though it (rightly) hasn’t been discussed as much as the actual trinitarian issues themselves, the current trinitarian debate does suggest some interesting things about how evangelicals are beginning to approach questions of gender. The consensus that has existed amongst most conservative evangelicals for some time is beginning to fracture—and in more than one direction. Continue reading →

3 Ecclesiology Questions Protestant Evangelicals Must Answer

3 Ecclesiology Questions Protestant Evangelicals Must Answer

After publishing nearly 13,000 words on ecclesiology this month (plus some spirited debate in the comments on Dr. Leeman’s response), I wanted to draw together what seem to me to be the three main strands of the debate between Minich and Dr. Leeman.

Other posts in the series:

Continue reading →

The Trinity Debate and “Big Eva”

The Trinity Debate and “Big Eva”

I had hoped that the big Trinitarian brouhaha was starting to calm down to more of a restrained, tightly defined level. Then Dr. Al Mohler waded into the debate yesterday, calling attacks on his friends Drs. Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem “nonsense” without ever bothering to actually engage with the substance of Carl Trueman, Liam Goligher, Mark Jones, Alastair Roberts, Michel Barnes, Matthew Crawford, Lewis Ayres, Fred Sanders, or Matthew Emerson’s actual arguments. Apparently it only takes one dismissive wave of the hand by someone as prominent as Mohler to dismiss the careful argumentation of a half dozen leading authorities in patristics or dogmatics. Continue reading →