In this episode we’re joined by Jeremiah Gibson and Julia Postema, licensed psychotherapists and certified sex therapists based in Utrecht, The Netherlands, hosts a podcast called Sexvangelicals. As we talk about in our discussion with them, their specialization as therapists is helping couples coming out of negative religious backgrounds. In our conversation we talk about their perspective on topics like evangelical purity culture, sexuality and religion, etc., from their professional vantage point as people who...
In this episode we’re talking about Celebrities for Jesus with Katelyn Beaty, who is the editorial director for Brazos Press and who previously served as print managing editor at Christianity Today. She’s also the cohost of the Saved by the City podcast, and the author of Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits are Hurting the Church (published by Brazos). In our conversation with Katelyn, we discuss the allure of celebrity in American evangelicalism,...
What is Fundamentalism? Christian fundamentalists (think R.A. Torrey, A.C. Dixon, or recently, John Piper, Norman Geisler, Paul Washer, John MacArthur, Wayne Grudem, etc.) are part of the movement in Evangelicalism that originated in 1910s America. This phrase has been used to connote religious bigotry, abuse, and close-mindedness, but fundamentalists are merely Evangelicals with a complex (we will see whether this complex is merited further on). This was the branch of American Christianity that found its roots...
I follow Paul, I follow Peter, I follow Apollos, I follow Christ. So Paul famously describes the leader-based factions developing in the Corinthian church. Like many of you, I like to think that if I were there, I would be in that Group 4 that says, “I follow Christ.” Maybe Group 4 was earnest, maybe they were being snarky, or maybe they were peacemakers trying to center the factions around what was important (if they...
This is, oddly enough, an article about writing an article. A former student of mine who now edits the university newspaper asked if I would write an OpEd piece for the upcoming Halloween issue. Touched (but mainly flattered), I accepted immediately, not considering the ramifications of my commitment. I was attempting to make a case for Halloween on a Christian campus notoriously divided on even acknowledging the holiday in the first place. Initially, the spooky...
This week Christianity Today ran a short article commemorating the 100th birthday of its deceased founder, Carl F.H. Henry. Henry is worthy of memory; aside from the aforementioned magazine, he gave us Fuller Theological Seminary and he was a key signatory on the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. He was passionately engaged in both doctrine and Christian work. Henry is largely a microcosm of the shift from early 20th-century “fundamentalism” (a rather vague term) to where...
In the undergraduate class I am teaching this semester, one of the research assignments students can choose is an analysis of the Barth and Bultmann debate over the nature of Jesus’ resurrection. One student who chose this assignment later changed their mind; this person sent me an email asking if it would be possible change to another assignment because, they asked rhetorically, “Isn’t Karl Barth heretical?” In fact, this person went so far as to...
We all know Wright has received a bad wrap from many conservative Christians over the years. I can remember being introduced to Wright’s view on Justification in a context in which I was told how detrimental his ideas were. Furthermore, one of the most influential figures for my theological thinking, John Piper, wrote an extensive rebuttal to N. T. Wright with The Future of Justification. Throughout the blogosphere there are many critical reviews of Wright’s work,...
Yesterday one of my friends on here linked to a post by Carl Trueman. It was critical of the emerging church movement. (On a side note: are we still talking about these people? Boring.) Anyways, at one point Trueman said of this movement: Truth as assertion, truth as rest, was out; truth as journey or conversation was in. The thrill was not in arriving; it was in the traveling itself. It is, of course, a...
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