The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It). By Thom Stark. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2011, xx + 248 pp., $29.00 paper. It is no secret that some of the most fervid theological liberals tend to be former evangelicals. Evangelical-turned-agnostic Bart Ehrman has vindicated that truism with books like Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted, both of which seek to discredit biblical inerrancy by popularizing critical studies of scripture. Thom Stark describes himself as a former fundamentalist, and his book The Human Faces of God belongs to the Ehrman-genre, though with at least one significant difference. Despite the…
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Dan Wallace Enters the Blogosphere
My old mentor in all things Greek has entered the blogosphere. Actually, Dan Wallace has already been here a while as a contributor to the “Parchment and Pen” blog, but now he is venturing out on his own at DanielBWallace.com. Here’s how Dan describes it: I decided, after much consternation, to follow the advice of some of my friends. They wanted me to start my own website, so here it is, warts and all. I will be discussing from time to time issue relevant to biblical studies. A special focus will be New Testament textual criticism, Greek grammar, exegesis, and Christology. You bibliophiles will want to add this one to…
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A Jimmy Carter Study Bible
Former President Jimmy Carter has just published a study Bible based on his decades of service as a Sunday School teacher in a Baptist Church. It’s titled NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter, and it “takes Mr. Carter’s years of teaching Sunday school lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, GA, and meshes them with the text of the NIV Bible.” A synopsis on Zondervan’s website describes the book this way: The legacy of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who has been teaching directly from the Bible for over 65 years and has taken the Bible’s teachings seriously, implementing them into his life’s work. Now he…
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How To Cite a Tweet MLA and Chicago Style
I read this week that the Modern Language Association (MLA) has developed a standard format for citing a Tweet in academic writing. That’s all well and good, but what about those of us who don’t use MLA? The college where I work follows The Chicago Manual of Style, and I’m sure many of you use that one as well. Well, you’re in luck. The Chicago Manual of Style suggests a format for citing Tweets as well on its website. So for all of you theologues, here are both formats. The Chicago Manual of Style (Endnote) John Piper, Twitter post, February 26, 2011, 3:09pm, http://twitter.com/johnpiper. Modern Language Association (MLA) (Works Cited…
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Spurgeon on the Reproach of Believer’s Baptism
“If I thought it wrong to be a Baptist, I should give it up, and become what I believed to be right… If we could find infant baptism in the word of God, we should adopt it. It would help us out of a great difficulty, for it would take away from us that reproach which is attached to us,—that we are odd, and do not as other people do. But we have looked well through the Bible, and cannot find it, and do not believe that it is there; nor do we believe that others can find infant baptism in the Scriptures, unless they themselves first put it there.”…
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Jim Hamilton on Believer’s Baptism and Close Communion
Jim Hamilton has contributed an article to The Gospel Coalition website on believer’s baptism. Jim and I are elders together at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. So the position he outlines in his essay is also my position. Here’s a brief statement of the view from Jim’s essay: Baptists believe that those who have not been immersed in water as believers to symbolize their union with Christ by faith have not been baptized. Presbyterians and other paedobaptists think they have been baptized, even if they have not been immersed in water as believers. John Bunyan agreed that baptism is the immersion of a believer in water but felt that…
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The Central Lie of Pornography
Doug Wilson says that the central problem with pornography is its “didactic and catechetical” nature, which tends to teach men lies about women. He writes: Porn is a sex ed curriculum put together by liars and incompetents. The central wrong lesson (one easily believed by guys, because it flatters them) is that women have men’s brains encased in women’s bodies. Everybody in the whole world is hot to go. Then, when he gets married to a normal woman, and discovers that all the free sex he thought was going to be on tap . . . isn’t on tap, at least not like what he expected, and he thinks he…
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The Gospel as Center
I was very pleased to receive in the mail today a new book edited by D. A. Carson and Tim Keller, The Gospel as Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices. This book is the work of pastors associated with The Gospel Coalition, and through fourteen chapters they unpack the theology reflected in the foundational documents of the Coalition. What that means is that this book is primer in the essentials of evangelical faith, and it is written by seasoned pastors. Contributors include D. A. Carson, Timothy Keller, Kevin DeYoung, Philip Ryken, Bryan Chapell, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ligon Duncan, Sam Storms, and many more (full table of contents below).…
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What is a Christian?
Franklin Graham, Jr. scandalized the talking heads on “Morning Joe” earlier this week when he appeared on the program and suggested that President Obama might not be a “Christian” (see video below). I appreciate Rev. Graham and his bold commitment to Christ, but I think there was much in what he said that was muddled and inconsistent and that probably did very little to win folks over to his position. I for one wish that the conversation had gone differently. Having said that, one item that needed to be clarified was exactly what is meant by the term “Christian.” It was very clear that Graham and his interlocutors were operating…
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D. A. Carson Goes To Liberty University
D. A. Carson has gone to Liberty University, but not permanently! He’s there as a guest to deliver a lecture titled “One Focus of the Gospel.” His text is John 3. It begins tonight at 7:30pm eastern time, and you can livestream it here.