In the third installment of our series on Art & Culture, we are joined by Dr. Matthew Mullins for a conversation on Art & Biblical Literature. Dr. Mullins is Associate Professor of English and History of Ideas as well as Associate Dean for Academic Advising at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, NC), and he is the author of Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Bible (Baker, 2021). Throughout the conversation we talk...
In this episode Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Rev. Daniel Parham are joined by Dr. Lisa Bowens, associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, and the author of African-American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation, which was published by Eerdmans in 2020. In this episode Dr. Bowens talks to us about her research on the primary sources from the 18th century on through the Civil Rights movement,...
The Museum of the Bible recently opened an exhibit entitled, “The Slave Bible: Let the Story be Told.” The centerpiece is a book called, “Parts of the Holy Bible, selected for the use of the Negro Slaves, in the British West-India Islands” published in 1808. Originally published in London in 1807, this book was apparently used to educate British-owned slaves in both reading and religion. The interesting thing about the work is that it features...
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...
Ever since I started down the path of academic theology I have been plagued by a single word: “literal”. No other word has caused me near the same amount of frustration and headaches than this word. Not only is it often, ironically, ill defined and vague, it becomes, also ironically, a license to interpret or translate a text in anyway the person doing the action sees fit. But the real problem is that there are...
Anna Carter Florence Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God’s Word in Community Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018. Pp. 215, paperback, $16.99 ISBN 9780802874122. In Rehearsing Scripture, Rev. Dr. Anna Carter Florence (Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary) offers a compelling vision for how the Church can read scripture afresh by adopting it as a script for performance. With personal examples and biblical commentary, Florence encourages her readers to join the “Repertory Church,” a place where...
In the Gospel According to St. Mark, Jesus introduces and institutes the Eucharist Feast in very few words: And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take, this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood...
The Ideology of Love in Film We have all seen it; a film wherein a lover pursues another for the duration of the movie, creating tension and perpetuating the feeling of an unattainable partner. This is necessary for the plot and for the ideology of love to function. If the lover’s partner is obtained in one climactic scene, as they are in many films, the political ramifications are tremendous. The longing is no longer there, the...
You’ve probably seen by now all the pictures of children being taken away from their parents. You’ve also probably seen the detention centers, the TIME magazine cover, the blog posts, the tweets, AG Jeff Sessions defending the practice by quoting Romans 13, President Trump saying that he couldn’t do anything about it, blaming Democrats, doing something about it, and then turning the issue into illegal immigrant crime. No hyperlinks needed; We’ve all seen them. We’ve...
We all hold to a worldview. Depending on our personal convictions, we are free to express it however we want. The Two Cities is a collaboration of my evangelical Christian colleagues who freely write about anything related to theology and culture. This isn’t to bring down those who may disagree, but the hope is to begin positive and constructive dialogue amongst peers or those with opposing views. The Statement Not too long ago, CBMW released...
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