…was going to be the study project that I was going to work on, but then I found out that someone had already done it. Back in 2006, Dr. Rodney Decker from Baptist Bible Seminary was a guest speaker at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. He gave three lectures on the topic of cremation, which is one of those “I’ve never thought about that much, but I’d like to sometime” subjects. I’ve always had some vague thoughts about it, but now I’ve got a far more educated position on the matter.
I was working on something and a stupid thought (picture, actually) lodged into my head so I’m getting rid of it (and sharing it too) in order to allow me to return to work. On the web, there are certain theological issues that involve rather aggressive fighting between proponents of different positions on the issue. One of those issues is eschatology (namely, “end times” stuff). There are rather a lot of different eschatological positions and a lot of unrelated issues that get dragged into eschatological discussion/debate/drive-by shootings. There are respectable academic discussions that happen online…and then there’s the other 99.8% of “discussion”; the kind that you see on Facebook. It seems like around 99% of Facebook thinks that they’re the first people to seriously study eschatology and imagine that their opponents are idiots for the singular fact of disagreeing with them (or not having read some random book that “destroys” a position). I’ve lurked some discussions and been involved in some of my own, and it’s amazing how many people think that anyone who doesn’t share their eschatological position gets their theology from something like this: Continue reading
Hi-Ho readers!
As you know, Fred Butler and I have been re-working our responses to Michael Brown’s book Authentic Fire and and preparing them to become a book. Being the somewhat perfectionist Bible-geek that I am, I’ve re-tooled all the posts from which this book has spawned and have added over 50 pages of new material. Most of it is in rather obsessively copious endnotes (it’s going to be released on Kindle, so footnotes aren’t an option), but I just finished working on a footnote that turned into quite the study project. Knowing that the book Authentic Fire is somewhat “old news” but questions about Charismatic issues are not, I’ve added a whole lot of content to the upcoming book that will hopefully make it a far more valuable resource than just a book critique. I promise you that if you pick up a copy, the endnotes will be more than worth the price alone. Continue reading
Before the Strange Fire conference in 2013, I did a rather extensive primer on the Charismatic Movement as represented in the top 50 largest churches in the US as represented by Outreach Magazine. Here’s the links in case you have a few hours to burn going over what was hundreds of hours of research and writing:
The New Apostolic Reformation
The Outreach Top 50: #1-5
The Outreach Top 50: #6-10
The Outreach Top 50: #11-15
The Outreach Top 50: #16-20
The Outreach Top 50: #21-25
The Outreach Top 50: #26-30
The Outreach Top 50: #31-35
The Outreach Top 50: #36-40
The Outreach Top 50: #41-45
The Outreach Top 50 #46-50
The Largest Churches in Africa
Only a few of the Largest Churches in Asia Continue reading
There’s an old saying on the internet:
Wise words to live by.
Okay…
I say that as a bit of a joke, but not entirely.
That’s the level of sheer stupid to which one has to plummet in order to make fun of bad ideas on the internet, because mocking anything less stupid might offend someone. Almost everything is taken serious by someone on the internet. The internet has been an absolute haven for the wicked, the wide-eyed and the witless since the first day someone sent a data packet across a phone line. Every unfathomably stupid idea has found new life on the internet, and old heresies have found unprecedented popularity amongst those who have more information than discernment. Continue reading
