Cross or Glory?

Posted on Monday, February 2, 2015 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

The theology of the cross can sadly be an opportunity for self-promotion.

In a seminar last week on Martin Luther, I commented that a theologian of glory could easily use the theology of cross for his own ends.  He would thereby utterly subvert its purpose while still using its form.  This provoked some discussion and even some resistance from my students but the point is relatively simple. Even the cross can be used as an opportunity for drawing attention to oneself.

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Meth and Death

Posted on Friday, January 30, 2015 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

A novel way of preventing assault on babies.

Our Man in Ulster has just brought this 2014 news story to my attention, about a woman charged with assault for taking meth while pregnant.  Setting aside the obvious legal issue about the personhood of a baby in the womb in a nation where abortion is allowed by law, the prize for most astounding statement surely goes to the commenter 'Helicohunter': 'Women who are addicted to meth should get abortions. Every fetus deserves a chance to develop normally.

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The Silence of the Gods

Posted on Friday, January 30, 2015 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

The collapse on same sex marriage will impact conservative evangelicalism.

Another evangelical megachurch congregation has come out in favour of same sex marriage.  This time it is GracePointe Church in Nashville, TN.

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And We Thought Free Range Was For Chickens

Posted on Thursday, January 29, 2015 by Aimee Byrd on Housewife Theologian

Irony of ironies, as we’ve become vigilant advocates for providing our future dinner foul with proper elbow room to roam freely, our children may be the ones living in caged conditions.

Irony of ironies, as we’ve become vigilant advocates for providing our future dinner foul with proper elbow room to roam freely, our children may be the ones living in caged conditions. Actually, there is a bit of a media storm erupting over a “new” style of parenting that has been labeled---wait for it---free range parenting. 
Yes.

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Contribution and Legacy

Posted on Thursday, January 29, 2015 by Aimee Byrd on Housewife Theologian

What kind of legacy should leaders leave?

As I was listening to the latest Mortification of Spin podcast yesterday, something struck me a little different. Carl asked about Thomas Oden’s contribution and legacy and we answered appropriately. But this time as he was asking that question, I thought about something else.
I think an important part of Oden’s legacy is hinted at in the title of the book.

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Mortification of Spin is a casual conversation of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Mortification of Spin and the mission of the Alliance.

Ragnarok

Posted on Thursday, January 29, 2015 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

Thomas Oden is too optimistic about the mainline.

One aspect of Thomas Oden’s life which is both admirable and perplexing is his denominational loyalty.  Oden is a United Methodist and it is clear from his autobiography that he is committed to his church and perhaps even optimistic that she might be rescued from all the liberal nonsense with which she has come to be identified.  In an era when denominational loyalty means little and choice of church is often built on consumerist preferences, such commitment is admirable.  In the case of mainlines, however, it is sadly now naïve and misplaced.

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A Guest Review: McKnight on Oden

Posted on Wednesday, January 28, 2015 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

Scot McKnight reviews Thomas Oden's autobiography

As readers will know, this week MoS is focusing on Thomas Oden's autobiography, A Change of Heart.  As I have reviewed it for the January edition of First Things, I asked Scot McKnight, as a friend and representative of another stream of evangelical life, to offer his thoughts on the volume, an invitation he kindly accepted.  To coincide with today's podcast on the book, I post Scot's review here, replete with quotations which give the reader a real taste of the book as a whole.

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Divine Mathematics of Salvation

by Nick Batzig • January 27, 2015

The great error of the Judaizers was not merely seeking to add circumcision to the New Covenant people of God for salvation–it was adding anything the finished work of Jesus for salvation. Essentially, Paul is pressing home the principle that Jesus plus anything else that you seek to add to His saving work will end in eternal loss. Adding to Jesus is subtracting from Jesus

More than ever before, we desperately need to answer the question, “What does Modern Judaizing look like?” The Judaizers were, of course, false brethren who--in the days of the Apostles--secretly came into a newly found church to spy out the freedom that Christians had in Christ. We don’t have people creeping into our churches insisting that we need Christ plus circumcision to be saved. We naively laugh at the idea that such nonsense could ever happen in Calvinistic and Reformed churches today.

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Valhalla Writing

Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2015 by Carl Trueman on Postcards from Palookaville

Thomas Oden knew what to read and therefore what to write.

One of the striking features of Thomas Oden’s spiritual life is his expansive intellectual appetite, evidenced in both his reading and his writing.   From his early liberal passion for radical theological and political literature to his later development of the notion of paleo-orthodoxy, Oden clearly loved to read good books which challenged him to think and to write thoughtful books that built on this foundation.   Indeed, Oden’s move to paleo-orthodoxy and evangelicalism did not disrupt this love for reading good theologians who stand outside the evangelica

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Cross-Contamination at the Lord's Table

Posted on Monday, January 26, 2015 by Aimee Byrd on Housewife Theologian

When theology is reduced to ideology, it's the local church that is starved and poisoned in the end.

My husband has an irrational fear of food poisoning. I can’t even tease him about it, because I would then be the one who has to deal with the imagined stomach aches.

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Syndicate content

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Depravity and Deliverance

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