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I wish I could say I was proud of my alma mater… Despite my Lenten Facebook fast, I was made aware of the following post by my friend Marlena Graves. I thought I’d share it, just in case anyone is considering Cedarville as a choice for college. I’d still strongly recommend you attend another institution, where you can trust the administration. My previous thoughts on these matters still stand. ====== “Dear friends, “Every. Single. Week. I am contacted by people who attend and work at CU who are just miserable. I pray about what to say and what not to say; my motives aren’t malicious. This morning I was reading about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and how he couldn’t believe that the Christians in Germany remained silent about Hitler or actively conspired with Hitler to get rid of the Jews. This situation at CU is no Germany. But faculty and staff at the school I loved are now forced into silence. They’re being oppressed. If they speak, they’ll lose their jobs. Their FB accounts and e-mails are monitored. A coup occurred at CU as it did at Southern Seminary, Southwestern Seminary, and Southeastern Seminary at the hands of Paige Patterson. Paige Patterson is now a trustee and mentor to the new president, Dr. White. Many who made decisions who fought to keep us and our friends (Bible profs/Carl Ruby and others) at the school told us that it was a coup. So the current administration doesn’t care about what fac/staff think. And students are there temporarily so….The chair of the board has said that he is willing to take the school down to 1200 to get their way. Shawn and I can afford to speak up because we didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement. We are thriving and not bitter. But, I do get angry about how people are being treated. Thank God Shawn got a job right away and didn’t have to worry about providing for his family. Every single person who knows me will tell you I deliberate about my words. I am tired of the pain people are going through. And so I speak up because I can. I think this is the last chance for those currently there to give an outcry. Otherwise it’s over for them. They have moved to forbid egalitarians from teaching there, too. Next year, if you cannot say you are comp, you cannot work there. Only money and power can accomplish such a coup. I have no money or power. But, I have the freedom to speak up. So this below is just more evidence of what is going on. Students pray for your professors and staff. Many are suffering and can’t even tell you. Many of their jobs are on the line. They continue to clean house while silencing people. Pay attention to who is no longer there and from where they hire their new faculty. I’ve lost count of who is gone. People have to decide whether or not they’ll feed their families or speak up. So please, speak up on their behalf! ...

I’m happy to announce that Rachel and I will be completing my required Cross Cultural Ministry Practicum for Beeson Divinity School along with our good friends Kyle, Rebekah, and baby Luke DeBoer in Lima, Peru this summer! Our goal is to assist the Stone families (Dave & Evelyn; Jonathan & Angela) in their various local ministries, including: Seminario Teológico Bautista (Seminary) Luz del Camino Iglesia (Church) Vida Nueva Centro Prenatal (Pregnancy Center) The goal of Beeson’s required Cross Cultural Ministry Practicum is to “expose students to issues related to cross-cultural ministry through first-hand experience in a cross-cultural ministry setting.” In addition to fulfilling this goal, we believe that this trip to Peru will be influential in determining the future involvement of both our families in global missions. God’s given each of us unique gifts — ranging from medicine to math, theology to linguistics. But He’s blessed us all with a heart for His global Gospel and his global Church. ...

If you’re in the Birmingham area from March 21-22, 2014, and you’re interested in evangelical theology, please consider attending the Evangelical Theological Society’s Southeastern Regional Meeting at Beeson Divinity School! This year’s theme is “the theological interpretation of Scripture,” and the plenary speaker is Wheaton’s Daniel J. Treier (incidentally, Dr. Treier and I are both alumni of Cedarville…go figure). Furthermore, if you’re free from 5:00-5:30pm on Friday, March 21, consider swinging by room S009 to hear me present “Reconciliation and the Lack Thereof: Atonement, Ecclesiology, and the Unity of God.” The atonement and the unity of the Church are topics that I’m passionate about, and I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to give my first ever conference paper. Here’s the abstract: ...

Over the break between semesters at Beeson Divinity School, I’m reviewing Bruce Waltke’s The Dance Between God and Humanity: Reading the Bible Today as the People of God and Philip Goodwin’s Translating the English Bible: From Relevance to Deconstruction for Liverpool Hope University’s Theological Book Review. I’ve just finished the latter, and hope to write my review in the next day or two. However, I’d like to share the following quotes on Deconstructive Literalism and The Perfect Translation, because I find the concepts intriguing as a student of Eugene Nida’s dynamic or functional equivalence (when it comes to both NT Greek and modern Spanish), and a newcomer to relevance theory, which Goodwin uses to provide a way forward in the shadow of the KJV tradition. More on that later. In the meantime: ...

As the briefest member of the Pauline corpus, the epistle to Philemon is a letter of recommendation for the sake of reconciliation in which the apostle Paul brings the gospel truth of mutual participation in the body of Christ to bear on an estranged relationship – making a delicate request of his friend Philemon to receive back a certain Onesimus into full fellowship as a brother in Christ.[1] ...

Black Friday proves that the progress of (post)modernity has failed to eradicate the ills of idolatry. Lest we denizens of the “highly-developed” world think that we have left the primitive vestiges of wood, rock, and gold idolatry behind, our shopping patterns (and indeed our shopping identities as consumers) should remind us of our consumerism’s dark side — a lethal one. As I’ve put in “Reconciliation and the Lack Thereof”: “Although physical idols may not be as universally common today as they once were, invisible idols are as prevalent as ever, especially within the context of Western materialism, where money, possessions, influence, and power are the modern-day Baal.” ...

“Violence is not human destiny because the God of peace is the beginning and the end of human history… “Granted, pushing the stone of peace up the steep hill of violence … is hard. It is easier, however, than carrying one’s own cross in the footsteps of the crucified Messiah. This is what Jesus Christ asks Christians to do. Assured of God’s justice and undergirded by God’s presence, they are to break the cycle of violence by refusing to be caught in the automatism of revenge.” (Volf, E&E, 306) ...

Introduction: The Holy Trinity One God. Three persons. The Holy Trinity. The orthodox paradox of this Christian confession confounds many, due to its apparent contradictions, abstractions, and absence from Scripture. From Arius to Augustine and beyond, trinitarian debates have raged even among those who agree that God exists, that the Bible is true, and that it is therefore worthwhile to consider what the Bible says because it reveals the existent God. ...

(Here’s my paper on Psalm 2, submitted to Dr. M. Sydney Park in partial fulfillment of my Biblical Interpretation course here at Beeson Divinity School. Although I don’t consider this the best thing I’ve ever written, I’d love for you to check this piece out and let me know what you think, because no matter the limitations of the assignment, there’s always room for improvement. Plus, I didn’t have space to talk about all the issues whirring around in my head while writing this paper, and your constructive feedback might very well help me take my next intellectual steps. Click the title below for the .pdf version.) ...

A couple relevant excerpts (given recent posts) from “Violence and Peace,” the final chapter of Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace (my emphasis added in bold; paragraph breaks added where noted): “God will judge, not because God gives people what they deserve, but because some people refuse to receive what no one deserves; if evildoers experience God’s terror, it will not be because they have done evil, but because they have resisted to the end the powerful lure of the open arms of the crucified Messiah. ...

The past week has been a great one for slipshod attacks on pacifism. First, from First Things (Stephen H. Webb) on October 15 —- “John Howard Yoder and the Violent Power of Pacifism” (emphasis added below): “Nevertheless, pacifists, at least the ones I know, can be very enthusiastic about the rightness of their cause. Since there is no rational justification for pacifism, defenders typically turn their rhetoric against their critics by casting them as stooges of the status quo. Since pacifists are against all forms of violence, anyone who disagrees with them must be in favor of violence. What this ploy misses is obvious. In a fallen world, not only is violence pervasive but it is also a toxin that, when legitimately used, can cure as well as kill. ...

INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF SCRIPTURE As the illocutionary act which testifies to the Son of God1 as the ultimate redemptive and revelatory locution of the the triune God, Scripture is used by the Spirit of God to accomplish the perlocutionary end of redemption of, in, and through the people of God.2 [Ahem, in order to understand my first paragraph, you must first be familiar with the basics of Speech Act Theory. If you’ve never heard of it before, click that link, and then come back here. It will be worth it, I promise!] ...

I highly encourage the following: 1. Read Scot McKnight’s The King Jesus Gospel. 2. Check out Tim Gombis’ insightful series of posts on The Gospel of the Kingdom, pt. 1, 2, and 3. Gombis hits the nail on the head here: Over the last several months, I’ve had several conversations about how the Gospels’ language about “the gospel” should shape how Christians conceive of the gospel. Whereas the New Testament mainly envisions a broader announcement of a larger reality, many evangelicals associate “the gospel” with a brief presentation, or information about the mechanics of an individual transaction that can secure divine forgiveness and the establishment of a personal relationship with God. ...

Rachel and I are in the middle of our second month of calling Birmingham, Alabama “home.” While we could both do with a little less humidity (!), we’re enjoying ourselves and our surroundings down here in Alabama. What’s Happening in Birmingham, AL: I don’t start my M.Div. coursework at Beeson Divinity School until late August, but I’ve already started working at Beeson’s Media Center (follow our nascent Twitter account here). It’s an incredibly convenient on-campus job. I’m already thankful for the hospitality of my boss and coworkers. It’s helpful as I learn the ropes of AV, IT, and sundry other tasks. ...

“Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world; In the Name of God the Father Almighty who created you; In the Name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you; In the Name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you. May your rest be this day in peace, and your dwelling place in the Paradise of God.”