Theology Central
Theology Central exists as a place of conversation and information for faculty and friends of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Posts include seminary news, information, and opinion pieces about ministry, theology, and scholarship.CBMW Appoints New Executive Director.
He is Colin Smothers. Read the news here.
Terry L. Johnson on Biblical Worship
Dr. Terry Johnson begins a series on “The Quest for Biblical Worship.”
The basic question is this: Are we truly committed to worshipping “according to Scripture?” Will Scripture both determine the elements and shape the forms of worship? Will Scripture determine not merely that we pray, preach, read, and sing, but what and how? Will we allow Scripture to shape our understanding of reverence, our concern for catholicity of form, and our commitment to the communion of all the saints, not merely to the preferences of our chosen demographic? If so, greater liturgical sameness will result and liturgical strangeness will be less common.
Whoa!
Put it on full screen. Turn on the speakers. Watch this.
[Link repaired–sorry about that!]
What Is an Evangelist?
Pastor David Huffstutler provides a shapshot answer at Religious Affections Ministries.
From this terribly brief survey, we could at least say that an evangelist is someone who takes the gospel to those who have not heard it before, whether it be to one person at a time, or large crowds within a given city. It is someone who does not stay long in one place, likely leaving behind planted churches so that he can take the gospel to new places that have never heard it before. And yet, he is also someone who ministers to the saints by equipping them for the work of the ministry, likely teaching them to do what he himself is specially gifted to do, namely, persuasively giving the good news of the gospel to unbelievers.
Does Darwin Love Me?
A reflection by Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative, including a critique of the “Coexist” philosophy.
A few days ago, as I drove our family to church, I was again affronted by the “coexist” bumper sticker and felt myself muttering the word “hypocrite” under my breath. Many people who brandish this sticker do not believe in genuine coexistence but only in the need for tolerance of particular lifestyles. They are all too happy to use coercion on those who disagree with them. I think of the militant pro-abortionists who endeavoured to prevent this year’s March for Life in Washington D.C. by physically blocking the route, or the homosexual militants who rioted at a university in Canada in an effort to prevent the late Charles Rice from speaking.
Oooh! This Is Going To Be Good!
In his discussion of “Ten Mangled Words,” David DeBruyn opens an examination of “Authenticity.”
Only a narcissistic generation would imagine that it had stumbled upon the meaning of authenticity, and that those that went before them were hopelessly mired in inauthentic, fake, insincere ways of life. But Xers, Yers and Millennials can barely contain their glee at how real they’re keepin’ it.
We buy Fair-Trade coffee, eat organic, listen to indie music, practice yoga, post online testimonials, blog about ourselves and our ‘struggles’, take natural medicines, wear mass-produced jeans distressed to appear “vintage,”, seek out pristine vacation spots, and one of the highest compliments we can pay someone is to say “he seems really sincere”.
Which Televangelist Has the Best Ferrari?
Not often do we find ourselves nodding in agreement with The Humanist. But orthodox believers ought to be just as scandalized by the Prosperity Gospel as any unbeliever. Anyway, it’s interesting to know . . . “Which Televangelist Has the Best Ferrari?” (NOTE: author Spencer Grady-Pawl cheated by including one person who does not qualify as a televangelist.)
Manners, Humility, and Dignity
The author, George W. Rutler, is Catholic–but his topic is universally human. And worth considering in an age of increasing brutality.
What Has Happened to English Departments?
Finnegan Schick explains at the New Criterion.
Faculty have “dismembered” their curricula, Stanford English Professor William Chace argued in The American Scholar, supplementing traditional classes with a smattering of “themed” courses. These new courses raise questions of gender and racial identity, sexuality and popular culture, at the expense of a foundational syllabus already equipped to answer these very questions. The English canon is a wellspring of wisdom, yet many academics dismiss the classics in favor of more contemporary or marginal literatures.
Incidentally, now that the university professors have left English for ideology, Christian colleges and universities have a platinum opportunity to salvage the best of the discipline. It may well be that Christian institutions can preserve learning through the next dark age, much as the monasteries did through the last one.
More than Blog Posts
Michael Kruger lists academic articles on the origins of the New Testament canon.
Hymns Didn’t Come from Drinking Songs
So says Jonathan Aigner at Ponder Anew. The essay includes a long string of Twitter exchanges. And it’s worth reading.
It’s a poor argument, and a lousy excuse for using any disposable ditty available to entertain people in Jesus’ trademarked name.
Chesterton on Modernity and Hair
Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl’s hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home: because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution. That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict’s; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.
Conclusion to What’s Wrong With the World
Why Jesus Needed the Holy Spirit
Nick Batzig explains for Reformation 21.
While the human nature of Jesus was inseparably united to the Divine nature of the second Person of the Godhead, Jesus needed to live a perfectly sinless life in the power and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It was not sufficient for Him–as the second Adam and representative of a new humanity–to merely live according to His Divine nature. What we need as fallen men is a human Redeemer who would gain a human holiness for His people and would die a human death in their place
Only In Minnesota . . .
. . . The North Shore, with Split Rock Lighthouse and Gooseberry Falls.
For Tolkien Fans . . .
All twenty-something verses of “Far Over Misty Mountains Cold,” sung to Howard Shore’s music by Clamavi De Profundis. Hat tip to middlingpoet.
The Cell of Saint Columba?
Columba is remembered as the Irish missionary who did much to evangelize the Picts in northern Scotland. Archaeologists have identified a site in Iona that dates to the time of Columba and that they believe may have been the cell where he prayed and wrote. You can read the story at Atlas Obscura.
The missionary was also a hymn writer. Here is a fragment of his most famous hymn, Altus Prosator, as translated by Samuel Stone.
High Creator, Unbegotten,
Ancient of Eternal days,
Unbegun ere all beginning,
Him, the world’s one source, we praise:
God who is, and God who shall be :
All that was and is before:
Him with Christ the Sole-Begotten,
And the Spirit we adore,
Co-eternal, one in glory,
Evermore and evermore:—
Not Three Gods are They we worship,
But the Three which are the One,
God, in Three most glorious Persons :—
Other saving Faith is none.
All good angels and archangels,
Powers and Principalities,
Virtues, Thrones, His will created—
Grades and orders of the skies,
That the majesty and goodness
Of the Blessed Trinity
In its ever bounteous largesse
Never might inactive be;
Having thus wherewith to glory,
All the wide world might adore
The high Godhead’s sole-possession
Everywhere and evermore.
Darnell Weeden on Marriage Equality and Religious Liberty
Writing for the Southern Illinois University Law Journal, Darnell Weeden argues that
Religious freedom, a long-standing right protected by the Free Exercise Clause, has become significantly diluted by the enhanced protection of marriage equality rights that restrict religiously motivated conduct.
In the Nick of Time
Final thoughts on the FBFI and the NTAIBC.
How to Wear a Polo Shirt
And here I thought I knew. There’s a good tutorial at The Art of Manliness.
AIG Reclaims the Rainbow
Read Ben Zornes’s comments here.
So, the Ark Encounter exhibit has marvelously trolled this deep conviction of the GQBLT tolerance crowd. Do they really have respect for all cultures, including Christian culture? If so, why have they appropriated Christian culture and used it contrary to our “deeply held beliefs”? If dressing up in a hijab, or blackface, or warbonnets, or gangster garb is so offensive, shouldn’t they show more respect to such a sacred component of Christian culture, doctrine, and symbolism?
APPLICATION & AID