Category: Church History

You & me together

The Spirit is God’s bond of love. It’s who he is and what he does. Yet he’s fully personal, with feelings, intentions, and actions. He prefers transparency in his role of elevating others, in forming union, and sustaining unity. So the Father loves the Son, and the Son in turn loves the Father, with the …

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New Identities

[I published an earlier version today. I wasn’t satisfied with it; so here’s my revision] What is an identity? Informally, we call it the “self” that anchors our unique view of life. It’s home to our core motives and deepest values. It determines why we do what we do. In Christian history a common basis …

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Optimistic or Alive?

A number of scholars have commented on Augustine’s “pessimism.” The label has also been attached to Martin Luther and John Calvin who shared Augustine’s belief in Original Sin. That is, they all affirmed the Bible teaching that humanity died in Adam. So that no one has spiritual life without new birth. Jesus supported this when …

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Affective Spirituality

“What do you mean by ‘affective theology?’ I’ve never heard of it before I met you.” It’s a fair question. I first found the label in Heiko Oberman’s The Dawn of the Reformation where he wrote of fourteenth-century Christians whose “suspicion of speculation” led them away from prior theological streams. They preferred “an affective theology …

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Calvin & the Spirit

In the sixteenth century John Calvin was a gift to the young Protestant Reformation; and he remains helpful today. The broad Bible reach of his Institutes, for instance, is still engaging. Some, I know, will be suspicious. Calvin has a reputation as a cold intellectual fixated on divine sovereignty and predestination. But, certainly to my …

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Pompeii

Luca and Anca spent the day with me visiting the ruins of Pompeii near Naples. Then the next day Luca and I visited the Naples archealogical museum where most of the artifacts of Pompeii’s destruction from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius are on display. I was surprised by my response to the experience. Let me …

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Luther in 1517

Welcome to All Saints Eve, 2017—now reduced to the weirdly twisted event of Halloween. Halloween aside, many of us know this day marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his Ninety-five Theses in Wittenberg, Germany. I’d love to be in Germany but having missed my chance let me at least offer a reflection in …

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