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Jesus Creed

What is fasting? Try defining it, and I’ll make a suggestion. Go ahead — in your mind define it. Here’s my suggestion: If, in defining fasting, we are tempted to define fasting as something we do “in order to” get something, I suggest we need to look again at the deepest wells of the Christian…

During my early graduate years in seminary I began to use the Loeb edition of the apostolic fathers, and then when Bart Ehrman brought out a whole new Loeb edition of the apostolic fathers, I bought that one. I enjoy Loeb volumes. But I have changed: Michael W. Holmes (Bethel College), who has for decades…

With the fourth chapter of Peter Bouteneff’s book Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives we come to a rather controversial character, Origen of Alexandria, (ca.185-254) Origen was a prolific Christian writer, thinker, and scholar.  He is purported to have written some 2000-6000 works  (depending how one counts) from commentaries on Genesis and…

Pelagianism is the favorite term thrown around by many today when the intent is to label a theologian as heretical. In the 9th chp of  Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe we are treated by Nicholas Adams (Anglican theologian at Edinburgh) to a discussion of Pelagianism. Pelagianism “implicitly denies…

AN Wilson, known to many as a religious skeptic and critic of the Christian faith, tells his story of faith in public. I hadn’t heard this before, and maybe I’m woefully outdated, but here it is. A week ago, there were Palm Sunday processions all over the world. Near my house in North London is…

How we treat the poor is a barometer of our faith in the Glorious Jesus Christ. That’s what James says in James 2:1 and then he sketches a scene before our eyes: 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes…

Here is a question from a reader… Scot (and the Jesus Creed Blog), What happens to our view of hell if we shift our understanding of “heaven” to the “new heavens and new earth” to the transformed earth? There’s been a stream of recent work re-picturing heaven, not as some postmortem location with harps and…

When it comes to pastoral theology, and to the local church kind of spiritual leadership, I look to others. Perhaps every denomination has its own favorite pastor-mentors, but a wise mentor and pastor who transcends denominations is Lynn Anderson. His two books on pastoral theology can only get the title if the pastor is wise…

We get asked about books often, and it is not always easy to know where to begin. I once was asked about books on spiritual formation, and I just couldn’t keep it to one and before long I had mentioned about twenty classical books that have influenced the church when it comes to spirituality. My…

Faith in Jesus Christ implicates a person in his way of life. Here is a sketch, a caricature that delves at the same time in the depths of the ordinary: James 2:2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.…
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