Before Easter, Steve Kneale on his blog drew our attention to a recent article giving 5 reasons to reconsider infant baptism. I agree with Steve’s responses and in fact, the arguments are not significantly new but I did want to give a little bit more attention to two of them. One here and the other… Continue reading “Stop” seems to be the hardest word (to hear)
Category: Theology
The New Perspective on Paul and the red herring of ethnicty
During my life time, one of the main, long running disputes in theology and Biblical studies has been around the Doctrine of Justification and what St Paul really taught. It began with the work of EP Sanders on Second Temple, Palestinian Judaism where he argued that the Jews of Jesus and Paul’s day were not… Continue reading The New Perspective on Paul and the red herring of ethnicty
What atonement means
There has been a tendency in recent years to talk about “models of atonement”. The tendency came to the forefront during the 2003 controversy over Penal Substitution. Evangelical Christians have historically tended to talk about Jesus’ death as paying the penalty for our sin. Steve Chalke and Alan Mann in their book “The Lost Message… Continue reading What atonement means
Deconstruction
Deconstruction or deconstructing is a word that is being increasingly used to describe a particular phenomenon linked especially with US Evangelical Christianity. The idea is that as someone loses confidence in their inherited evangelical faith, they start to deconstruct. The challenge the assumptions and tenants of their faith which levels the ground and enables then… Continue reading Deconstruction
Does the parable of the prodigal son rule out penal substitution?
This was other “Threads take” that I referred to the other day. In the parable of the prodigal son, a father has two sons, the younger demands his share of the inheritance and then leaves home, wasting his share until famine hits and forces him to recognise his folly. He returns home to throw himself… Continue reading Does the parable of the prodigal son rule out penal substitution?
Paul and the supposed lost message of love
I promised that I’d pick up on the substance of a couple of recent social media debates. Here’s the secind one. Readers will recognise immediately that this is a pretty old misconception. It’s been doing the rounds as long as I can remember. Some of my readers are significantly older than I am and I… Continue reading Paul and the supposed lost message of love
Memes and Piper
Talking of bad takes I’ve picked up in other places than the much maligned Twitter, here’s something else I came across on Threads. Why is this a bad take? Well, first of all consider the theology offered here as an alternative to Piper’s. There are three things that strike me. First, what exactly is “a… Continue reading Memes and Piper
Worldview Fiction
Gavin Ortlund recently asked on Social media the following question, whilst offering his own answer. Justin Peter’s another prominent American Christian leader responded with this acerbic put down. I want to make a couple of observations about the conversation. First of all, some people have been quick to point out that there are significant portions… Continue reading Worldview Fiction
When to use the H word (on calling brothers and sisters heretics)
Accusations of heresy are thrown around quite liberally at times. This has been seen most pertinently in recent times in the dispute about Eternal Functional Subordination. Some of those on the EFS side have been quick to presume that their interlocuters were slipping into heterodoxy and falling for modalism. However, the louder accusations have come… Continue reading When to use the H word (on calling brothers and sisters heretics)
On the frequency of dreams and visions in the early church
I wanted to pick up on something I saw in a recent article looking at the question of dreams and visions. I’m not going to unpack the whole question of dreams and visions here except to say that I believe that these are available for Christians today. As I’ve mentioned previously, we talk about God… Continue reading On the frequency of dreams and visions in the early church
Faithroots 