Who Speaks for the Church?
The drums of war are beating, the President has asked Congress for support of military action, the Congress is debating. It is 1990, it is 2003, it is 2013. The President is Republican, the President...
View ArticleThe Problem of Authority: Who Interprets the Bible?
The evangelical movement has always prided itself, as has Protestantism in general in the past, on being Bible-based. The group I grew up in eschewed any creed or doctrinal statement, saying that we...
View ArticleWhen Language is Emotive Rather than Enlightening
Despite this being the Advent season when the candles of love, joy, and peace have been lighted on our Advent wreaths (for those who have such things), we realize have been taught to think, not just...
View ArticleSaving Marriage?
I am teaching Old Testament Survey this term, and when I teach that course I always note that one reason to learn Old Testament is to have a background for reading English literature, which can refer...
View ArticleMeditating on Lent
We are just past the middle of Lent, a customary observance that I did not grow up with, but which I now heartily embrace. I admit that people look a bit strangely at one when one talks about fasting....
View ArticleYou Never Graduate – Reflections on Graduation
I missed HBU graduation yesterday, for before I had realized the implications of the new calendar (perhaps before it was published) I had agreed to teach in an intensive bi-vocational clergy training...
View ArticleIndependence Day Gen 3 and Matt 11
Last Friday was, of course, Independence Day. I live on the edge of a small city in Texas, so eidola (images) were as much in evidence as Herms on the streets of ancient Corinth. Every railing and...
View ArticleWhat does the King have to do with an election?
The minor election cycle (i.e. the two-yearly) is barely over and the major one (four-yearly) has started ramping up so that we have something to think about for the next two years. Just after the...
View ArticleThat They All May Be One
It is very clear from John 17 that Jesus intended his church to be one. Indeed, that is also a theme in Paul. There is not to be a Jewish-Christian people of God and a Gentile-Christian people of God,...
View ArticleReflections on 40 years in theological education
The plan is that I will be retiring from Houston Baptist University in a few weeks. This is not retirement to a rocking chair, but more like retirement to church ministry: I plan to be very involved in...
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