Scripture on Sunday – 2 Corinthians 5:14
In the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians Paul is defending himself against some at Corinth who are questioning his motives and ministry, and perhaps accusing him to others in the church, evidently seeking to ingratiate themselves to the Corinthians in Paul’s place. …
The Christian’s Political Duty (10 Theses)
Last week I posted on Barth’s “conversation” at the Zofingia Student Association meeting on June 3, 1959. At this meeting Barth addressed the questions put to him, What are the role and duties of the Christian as a political citizen? Does Christianity …
The 2019 Annual Vose Lecture
On August 2, 2019 Ben Witherington III delivered the Annual Vose Lecture on the theme, “A Singular Jesus in a Pluralistic Culture.” In essence, the lecture was an applied New Testament apologetics within a Wesleyan Evangelical framework of thought. Witherington explored Jesus’ …
Scripture on Sunday – Of Hairdos and Hierarchies (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)
Read 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 One of the more difficult and obscure passages in the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, which seems so distant from the modern world in setting and argument. I read this passage during the week, and flummoxed (again!), …
A Christianity that “Deserves to Perish”
On June 3, 1959 Karl Barth was a guest at the Basel chapter of the Swiss Student Association Zofingia, a fraternity established 200 years ago in 1819, and of which Barth himself had been a member in his student days. The photo …
“Slow Conversion”
The Western Australian Churches of Christ journal On Mission Journal has published a brief article I wrote. My article is on the idea of Slow Conversion, based on the Patristic practice of the catechumenate. It is a ‘practical’ adaption of my longer recent …
An Ethos of Pastoral Care – Gerard Manley Hopkins
In a class on pastoral care yesterday, we read and discussed Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “In the Valley of the Elwy.” Hopkins was a Jesuit priest in nineteenth-century England seized with a deep sense of missionary vocation. After his early death, he …
Academic Argument
Brian Smith for The Chronicle Review I was interested to read the chapter on academic argument in Winning Arguments by Stanley Fish. That is what you have to do to earn your bona fides as an academic: enter an ongoing conversation about …
Stanley Fish: Winning Arguments (Review)
Stanley Fish, Winning Arguments: What Works and Doesn’t Work in Politics, the Bedroom, the Courtroom, and the Classroom (New York: Harper Collins, 2016) ISBN: 978-0-06-222665-5 Stanley Fish, distinguished professor of law in New York and Florida, argues quite simply that “argument is …
Guretzki, An Explorer’s Guide to Karl Barth (Review)
David Guretzki, An Explorer’s Guide to Karl Barth (Downers Grove, Il.: IVP Academic, 2016). Pp. xiii + 223. ISBN: 978-0-8308-5137-9 Last week I reviewed Galli’s recent introductory biography of Karl Barth for evangelicals, and expressed the hope that evangelicals might engage with the …