Stretched Between Two Poles

 In the pages between the hunter-orange covers of Kevin Vanhoozer’s book, The Drama of Doctrine, there is some excellent biblical theology.  Andrew and I have both benefited from this book in several ways.  Here’s a quote from page 111 that talks about how Christians are ultimately citizens of the age to come who (for now) …

Natural Law and Two Kingdoms in Reformed History

When I was in college, I had a class on "spiritual formation" that was basically a huge dose of medieval mysticism with just a touch of English puritanism.  (I've wondered since then if this teacher of mine knew what the English Puritans said about Rome!)  Since the class was de-forming my "spirituality" (I did NOT …

Deep Church (Brief Review)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of reading Jim Belcher's Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009).  I just learned about it a few weeks ago and after checking it out on Amazon, I thought I should get it since I enjoy reading 21st century books about "church."  I've read quite a bit …

Hauerwas: Theses on Christian Ethics

 In The Hauerwas Reader, edited by John Berkman and Michael Cartwright, there is an essay of Stanley Hauerwas from 1981 called "Reforming Christian Social Ethics: Ten Theses."  I'm not a pacifist (but I hate war and love peace), nor am I "with" Hauerwas in every way, but a lot of the stuff he says is …