Blogalogue

Thanks, Tom, for a thoughtful and interesting response. I think we both must feel how difficult it is to interact in this kind of forum, where what we want is sustained debate but have chosen to limit ourselves to brief responses. But we – you and I – must muddle along as best we can….…

Thanks, Bart, for the clear and actually moving account of your former faith, your questionings, and your eventual abandonment of Christian belief. I was glad to hear you say that you wrote the book not to encourage others to follow you into agnosticism (though I guess that is how the book may well work rhetorically…

For most of my life I was a devout Christian, believing in God, trusting in Christ for salvation, knowing that God was actively involved in this world. During my young adulthood, I was an evangelical, with a firm belief in the Bible as the inspired and inerrant word of God. During those years I had…

N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England. He previously taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford, and has continued to write and speak on biblical theology and Christian history. Wright is author of Surprised By Hope, Simply Christian, Evil and the Justice of God, and many other titles.…

Bart Ehrman is the author of God’s Problem, Misquoting Jesus, and several other titles. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Beliefnet’s previous interview with Ehrman appears here. He has written for Beliefnet on women and the early church, and Gnostic Christianity, and…

I’ll begin by (again!) agreeing with Jeff: It’s good for democracy when a group of citizens become politically engaged. Debates are more robust, candidates have sharper visions, and civic participation rises. All of us agree that evangelicals now have power. But their legacy is still up for grabs. What does the future hold? Power is…

I find it depressing, though I suppose inevitable, that Evangelicals are all painted with the same brush. I hope we are not guilty of the same generalized thinking as we engage the culture. Yes, we extend across a wide philosophical spectrum from the Jim Wallises and Tony Campolos to the James Dobsons and Gary Bauers,…

I’m glad to have Hannah’s unvarnished account of the Value Voters Summit; though I think she’s being unfair to the Politburo, an institution that was at least mercifully corrupt: Everyone had to toe the line publicly, but privately nearly everyone knew better. I didn’t make it to the Value Voters Summit. Instead I went back…

Ok, I want to inject a little reality check into this conversation. So far we seem to agree on three things that should happen to make us less queasy about evangelicals in high places: 1. Powerful evangelicals stop the servant talk and acknowledge that they want power, and have it, and have to figure out…

The problem with evangelicals today is that so many have lost confidence in Jesus. I think that explains the problems that all of us have with them today. Consider this from Michael: “What unites evangelicals is that they believe something is wrong with American culture and that they can help set it aright. ‘Cultural redemption’…

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