Holiness Reeducation

In Christian Smith’s new book The Bible Made Impossible we encounter an in depth look at Evangelicalism’s foundational beliefs about the Bible and their implications. This is a challenging and important book for all of us who teach scripture, debate theology, and defend the authority of scripture to read and discuss. Last week I began [...]

How are the Crystal Cathedral, the Church of the Nazarene and Syria alike? (Insert joke here) Tourism is being hurt around the globe by recession and violence. Countries such as Syria are suffering mightily because of the effects of unrest on their tourism industry. This is leading to even more unrest that is spurring once [...]

Is a poor theology of salvation working against our mission in the evangelical church? For the past several weeks we have been discussing David Fitch’s new book The End of Evangelicalism? You can see the earlier parts of this conversation here and here.  Today we continue by examining the “Decision for Christ”, how our theology [...]

How can a Slovenian philosopher/cultural theorist who is self described as being part of the radical left help us understand the culture of evangelicalism? That is the question from The End of Evangelicalism? by David Fitch that we are examining today. Last week we began looking at this book with a wonderful analogy by said [...]

Sorry I was blog incommunicado last week, but life was  a bit crazy. I had the great joy to attend M11 in Louisville which was a gathering of several thousand Nazarene clergy and lay people from the US/Canada region. Here are some reflections from three days spent fellowshiping and worshiping with thousands of Nazarenes. Say [...]

It is strange when you watch it snow for 24 hours and then you look out your window and your driveway has less snow on it than before the snow began. That was the power of the wind blowing around here the past couple of days. No one has any idea how much snow fell [...]

Many are saying that Europe has spent the past 100 years entering a post-Christian reality. The church in Europe, while still a strong cultural identifier, has lost its spiritual vitality in many places. The great cathedrals that remain of Christianity’s dominance in Europe now are mainly museums rather than houses of worship. The one time [...]

Google is driving robot cars around your city…. The Redskins have the most horrifically awesome win ever…. Holiness is communal…. and I have people on 3 continents working on logos for me……  All in today’s ramblings… I must begin this week by celebrating cringing over the Redskins victory yesterday over the Bears. Living in Chicagoland [...]

Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Of all the Beatitudes this is the one that makes me stop in my tracks and really think. My Wesleyan Holiness upbringing is both a blessing and a curse when reading this Beatitude. A part of me jumps straight on it and moves directly [...]

One of my favorite bloggers/writers David Fitch has an interesting post today about the future of the Evangelical church. David writes…. The future of the traditional evangelical church as I see it is: a.) mega churches continuing to grow, consolidating what is left of the Christendom populations, providing a traditional church services to the shrinking [...]