Many Christians today simply have no functional doctrine of Scripture. We may affirm that Scripture is “inspired” or “the word of God,” but we don’t fill these terms up with very much content. Some Protestant traditions affirm biblical inerrancy. Roman Catholics have a well-developed set of doctrinal statements on Scripture. For many of us in…
It’s a time of great flux in the United Methodist world. Two, three, or possibly even more denominations may emerge from the UMC in the next few years. As this takes place, various groups will ask, “How can we represent our Wesleyan heritage most faithfully?” This is a complex question. In part, our answers will…
I was recently invited to participate in a dialogue on the authority of Scripture at United Theological Seminary with friend, Rev. Dr. Mike Slaughter. We were each given fifteen minutes to talk about how we conceive of Scripture’s authority. The following is the basic text of my presentation. I’ve edited it a bit to make…
There has been no small amount of dialogue among North American Protestants as of late on the contributions of women in ministry and the challenges they face. Beth Moore’s “A Letter to My Brothers,” for example, is a painful reality check from an evangelical icon: I am a laugher. I can take jokes and make…
Recently on the Plain Truth Podcast we tackled the question: Is the Bible sexist? As the tag line to the title suggests, “An answer(sort of) for Susanna.” We didn’t really come to a concise conclusion. Personally, I might be tempted to joke it’s because asking three academics to come to a concise conclusion about anything…
Christians have long discussed and debated the best way to approach the Bible. In my own tradition, United Methodism, there is considerable ongoing debate about how best to interpret Scripture. I often hear claims that seem to have no relationship to our stated positions as a church. The debate, moreover, tends to devolve into whether…
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m happy to say that I received hard copies today of my new book, Scripture and the Life of God: Why the Bible Matters Today More Than Ever. My goal in this book is to talk about Scripture as a resource that leads us into salvation. Through Scripture, we can know God…
A few good posts have popped up about the “Next Methodism” and what that might look like. Kevin Watson, Scott Fritzsche, and Stephen Fife have taken up this topic, and I made my own contribution as well. Now I’d like to continue the conversation with a bit of reflection on what it might mean for…
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book with Seedbed, Scripture and the Life of God: Reading the Bible to Grow in Faith. Several years ago I had the privilege of meeting Randy Clark. Randy was the principal preacher during the Toronto Blessing, a massive revival that began in 1994 and launched him into international…
Lately I’ve been working on a Wesleyan interpretation of Matthew, so I’ve been reading a lot of Wesley, particularly his thirteen discourses on the Sermon on the Mount. Going back through his corpus of sermons reminds me what great treasures they are, and how he always attempts to deal with theological issues in a practical…