Automated Shakespearean Insulter

My favorite so far: [You] idol of idiot-worshipers!

Reno: Giving them the Business

I’m a New Testamenter and all, but I admit,  it made my morning to read R.R. Reno giving the business to so many of those in the field of biblical studies.

Great article, especially coming from a miscreant we label “theologian.”

My Weekly Moment of Ellis – 3

So also in the command, ‘you shall not commit murder,’ Jesus argues not against God’s command through Moses but against the traditional limitation of that command to literal murder.  If someone objects, ‘But the text says “murder,” one might reply as a certain rabbi once did to his pupil: ‘Good, you have learned to read.  Now go and learn to interpret.‘

- E. Earle Ellis

Not that I’m a Betting Man…

But $10 says someone got flashed in Fort Worth Hall today.

The Context for Theology

Stanley Hauerwas isn’t one of the “in” theologians of the groups I inhabit.  That’s too bad.  Say what you will about Hauerwas – really, say whatever you want, he’d encourage the rough language – it’s a mistake to ignore his work.  And not just an academic mistake;  I’d be spiritually poorer had I not been introduced to his writing.

Though I find myself flipping  between agreement and disagreement almost as often as I flip pages, his new book is one I don’t intend to miss: A Cross-Shattered Church: Reclaiming the Theological Heart of Preaching.  A few excerpts:

I am convinced that the recovery of the sermon as the context for theological reflection is crucial if Christians are to negotiate the world in which we find ourselves….

I have, however, increasingly come to the recognition that one of the most satisfying contexts for doing the work of theology is in sermons.  That should not be surprising because throughout Christian history, at least until recently, the sermon was one of the primary places in which the work of theology was done.  For the work of theology is first and foremost to exposit scripture.  That modern theology has become less and less scriptural, that modern theology has often tried to appear as a form of philosophy, is but an indication of its alienation from its proper work.

More on the the context of theology later…

I’ve Always Thought There Was Something Sacramental About Integrals

Oh That You Would Slay the Wicked, O God!

My Elders

Ever wonder what the elders of your church do when they’re not pontificating eldericating?

Pun Fun Fund: Do it for the Kids

Not that Kind of Glory, Not that Kind of King

One thing the sheep and the goats have in common: they’re both surprised to discover they’d previously encountered the King.

My Quest for the Historical Schwietzer

Moe: “He’s gone mad with power, like that Albert Schweitzer guy.”