The dominant image for me last week was claret and amber flare smoke over Valley Parade telling the world that Bradford City were promoted. The dominate image this week for many was the image of white smoke over the Vatican announcing a new pope. I’ve been intrigued by the response of people both within Evangelicalism… Continue reading A new pope and implications for us
Tag: Evangelicalism
Why I’m still a Protestant … And why you should be too
Evangelical responses to the death of the Pope have highlighted some confusion about our identity. Being Protestant feels like an anachronistic embarrassment. This perhaps reflects confusion about what the Catholic Church teaches about the Gospel.
The papal mirror: How Evangelical commentary on the death of Pope Francis tells us more about Evangelicalism than it does about the Pope and Catholicism
What we say and do when someone is dead is more to do with ourselves than it is to do with the deceased, even if we talk in terms of respecting them or their wishes. The things we say in eulogies, obituaries and articles analysing a person’s legacy tend to tell us more about ourselves… Continue reading The papal mirror: How Evangelical commentary on the death of Pope Francis tells us more about Evangelicalism than it does about the Pope and Catholicism
What is an Evangelical?
It’s over twenty years now since the controversy over Steve Chalke’s book, The Lost Message of Jesus. Central to the controversy was his rejection of Penal Substitution and central to the response was that you can’t deny Penal Substitution and continue to be recognised as an Evangelical. It is worth noting that at the time,… Continue reading What is an Evangelical?
Evangelical Unity
Here are some further thoughts on how we encourage Evangelical Unity. I remember a friend pointing out once that there will be different levels of fellowship and partnership and it is helpful not to have a one size fits all approach to relationships. His analogy was that there will be those you can embrace close,… Continue reading Evangelical Unity
Questioning curiosity
Here’s an interesting one. Jemar Tisby wrote: Now, perhaps ironically, that in itself raises a whole load of questions that his approving audience don’t seem to be asking. The first one is this.” How would people have reacted if we replaced the words ‘white’, ‘evangelical’ and questions’ in that sentence?” A second question would be,… Continue reading Questioning curiosity
There’s more to reformed evangelicalism than this
Yesterday I shared some reflections in response to an article in Evangelicals Now by Glen Scrivener. There’s much I agreed with in his article, much that resonated. However, one thing I’m not so comfortable with is that in many respects, his description was only of a small part of Evangelicalism. Indeed, I think that the… Continue reading There’s more to reformed evangelicalism than this
We are talking but are we hearing each other?
I’ve written recently about the discussion concerning “evangelical deconstruction.” I’ve also in the past picked up on aspects of the debate including reactions to articles from people like Kevin DeYoung and John Piper as well as books such as “The making of Biblical Womanhood.” Part of the problem I think is that we have the… Continue reading We are talking but are we hearing each other?
The hermeneutical spiral
One of the things we’ve been exploring is the challenge that comes when reading Scripture. The problem is that although God’s Word is objectively true, infallible, inerrant and clearly revealed, we are finite, affected by The Fall, conditioned by our own culture and experience. The result is that we bring all of those things into… Continue reading The hermeneutical spiral
Is the label “conservative-evangelical” a stumbling block?
Evangelical Times have published this article by Mike Judge explaining why he’s no longer using the term “conservative evangelical.” There were a couple of things that I found interesting in the article, not least that he is himself drawing the boundaries for who belongs to the tribe quite tightly. Mike identifies himself as Reformed in… Continue reading Is the label “conservative-evangelical” a stumbling block?
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