In this episode, which is part two of a two-part conversation, we are joined by Prof. Esther Lightcap Meek to talk about teaching as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of her book, Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (published by Baker). Prof. Meek is Professor of Philosophy emeritus at Geneva College and Senior Scholar at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. In this conversation we continue our conversation on Prof. Meek’s approach...
Following up on an earlier episode, “PhDs & The Devotional Life,” from April 22nd, 2020, John Anthony Dunne and Brandon Hurlbert discuss the dynamics of preaching in the local church with PhD level education. How does a PhD help one prepare for preaching? In what ways does it hinder preaching? How can we ensure that we are genuinely connecting with the people in our churches and not simply preaching ‘at them’? You can find this...
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...
This summer, I got to read through Ephraim Radner’s Time and the Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures. When we flipped the calendar to August, and I traded theology for middle school literature, sharpening the transition from student to teacher, I was surprised to discover how theologically rewarding my experience would be. I want to tell you two stories from my classroom about figural readings of To Kill a Mockingbird and then turn them into an argument for...
Many years ago when I was new to biblical faith and largely unaware of other belief systems outside of my own (or at least of the couple congregations I had attended), I met a co-worker who described himself as ‘Eastern Orthodox’. At the time I met him I had been a Christian for only a couple years. I was an Agnostic up until my twenties and I was inexperienced with various religions or versions of...
The Root Issue: Failure to Listen In my previous blog post, The Art of Listening, I discussed the important and wise lesson behind one of my favorite biblical versus—Proverbs 18:13: “He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him” (NASB). If you have not already done so, I highly recommend reading through that previous post as this topic is in many ways a continuation of that [all too common]...
As I am working my way through my PhD thesis I constantly run into profitable but extremely distracting side topics. These are topics that I would love to follow but, in my need to stay focused, I have to put on my blinders and make somewhat of an attempt to stay on topic. Today I didn’t do so well at avoiding distraction and hopped down a bunny trail while reading through Philo of Alexandria’s De posteritate...
During my spring break I was able to go on a trip to India with my officemate Chris Brewer and his dad Gary. We began our trip in Imphal, which is the capital of the state of Manipur in the northeast (we weren’t far from the border of Burma). When we arrived it happened to be the start of the nation-wide color festival Holi so we saw people all over town with various smatterings of...
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 is a post I wrote on my personal blog a few years ago. I think it still holds true but would like to hear your thoughts I think evangelicalism has failed on two major fronts. One is the preaching and teaching of the Sanctification process through the power of the Holy Spirit. So much of evangelicalism is about prompting people to make a decision for Christ and then counting them as a statistic. Baptisms...
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