Faith and Intellect

Book Review: Believe Me by John Fea

As someone who grew up steeped in the conservative political world of the Evangelical Christian movement in the US, I was continually stunned by the ability (and willingness) of Evangelicals to continue to make excuses for the seemingly un-Christian behavior, attitudes, and rhetoric of Donald Trump. In his book, Believe Me, John Fea (my colleague at […]

A Disembodied Head? Part 11: Unity

20 “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, 21 that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe […]

A Disembodied Head? Part 2: The Key

Hopefully I piqued your interest with yesterday’s teaser at the end of my post. I do believe that there is a “Key” to correctly interpreting everything in Scripture, and the Key is pointed out within the text. For me, the discovery was more of a “Duh” moment than an “Aha!” The Key was actually something […]

A Disembodied Head? Part 1

Today I want to begin a series on my theological journey. I will not go into great detail here on some of the history of the theological journey, but I want to give enough of the story along the way to show how I’ve come to my current place, and show the Scriptures that helped […]

Ted Davis on Theistic Evolution

In the debates on the origins of life, it is easy to argue with each other without understanding each others true positions. In that vein, Dr. Ted Davis, my colleague at Messiah College, offers his take on the tenets of Theistic Evolution as part of a series at the BioLogos Forums‘ site. He will eventually be […]

The History of Church vs. State in the U.S.

John M. Barry offers a little historical perspective on the origins of the church/state relation debate. Not too surprisingly, the debate about the relationship between church and government in the US dates back to the earliest colonies. Barry looks specifically at the Massachusetts Bay Colony and more specifically the thoughts of Roger Williams. Here is […]

Can Glenn Beck Read?

I’m not so sure after the uproar of the last week or so. It all started with a post by my friend and colleague John Fea. Dr. Fea is the chair of the Department of History here at Messiah College, a thoughtful Christian, and an exemplary historian specializing in early American History. He is very […]

Chris Smith on Why He Abstains from Voting

I resonated with much of a piece from Chris Smith from Relevant Magazine. Relevant is currently in the process of offering a series of Christian perspectives on politics. (Previous posts come from a Christian Libertarian, Christian Republican and a Christian Democrat.) Chris is offering an explanation for his choice not to vote. I’ll give you a taste of his philosophy, and […]

On the “Plain” Meaning of Scripture

Over at the Pangea Blog on Patheos, Kurt Willems explores what he considers to be a flawed way of reading Scripture. He represents it by the concept of what Scripture “plainly” means to the reader. The idea seems reasonable. Why would God make Scripture “tricky” such that the meaning wasn’t clear? The problem with this technique is […]

John Fea on the Democracy and this Election Cycle

Several great posts from John Fea about the election cycle and how Christians can think faithfully about the role of government and the process of democracy. John is the chair of the Department of History at Messiah College (where I am on the faculty and teach statistics). I’ll highlight two of them here, but you […]