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Category Archives: Theology
The new importance of Josephus to Christian faith
In complete contrast, both in subject and mood, to Debbie Lerman’s book, which I reviewed in my last post, my other recent reading has been a new monograph by T. C. Schmidt on the passage in Josephus’s Antiquities about Jesus Christ. Published by Oxford University, in an incredibly enlightened gesture Josephus and Jesus – New Evidence for the One Called Christ is available for free download here. Presumably it is thought to be of interest only to nerdy academics. Maybe that’s me.
Posted in History, Theology
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Unsung saints
Two years ago I did a piece as an obituary to an old friend, Peter Loose, who though incredibly self-effacing made a great behind-the-scenes difference to many Christian enterprises both here and in the US. I described how I first got to know him in my home Bible Study Group based on the ordinary, if large, Baptist Church where we were both members. Today I hear news of the death of another member of that small (and unremarkable) group, whom I’ll call “K,” and although (or perhaps because) she had nothing like the kind of influence on the world that Peter did, I feel a eulogy is called for, because … Continue reading
Posted in Theology
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From Athens to Bedlam
Realising late in the day that I needed some holiday reading to supplement an Agatha Christrie novel, I hurriedly ordered the book that had been on my Amazon wish-list the longest, Prof. Stephen R. L. Clark’s From Athens to Jerusalem. To my surprise it went on the list as far back as July 2012, when I heard him speak at an Intelligent Design conference in Cambridge, hosted by the Philosophy of Religion branch of the Tyndale Fellowship. Time flies when you’re geriatric, doesn’t it?
Posted in Philosophy, Theology
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More on Christian music and church music
Thanks to those wonderful YouTube chaps, I’ve just discovered the fascinating and surprisingly contemporary-sounding music of Pérotin, the thirteenth century composer of Notre Dame, Paris, who was the first to write choral music for four parts, eight centuries ago. I’m tempted to say I’ve developed Pérotinitis, as it’s such good stuff.
Posted in History, Music, Theology
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Is “moderate Charismatic” an oxymoron?
The reason for posing this question is that whilst the excesses of the “Hypercharismatic” megachurches are plain to see, and have been so for many years, they still seem remarkably attractive to the undoubtedly sane and generally sound Charismatics in most British Evangelical churches.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
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The use and abuse of music
It has been truly said that modern revivals (of the Toronto Blessing sort, rather than the actual quiet revivals apparently going on in the UK or Iran) are not gospel revivals but music revivals. By that is meant that if you removed the loud and prolonged rock music from the proceedings, nothing would happen in the way of people falling on the floor, weeping, laughing hysterically and all the other features that convince people the Holy Spirit has turned up in force. I can well believe it.
Posted in Music, Theology
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Hump author shakes the world of biology
Not me, you understand! My friend Sy Garte, one of the original writers here, who has moved on to various platforms of his own, is the lead author of a significant new paper. I confess upfront that I became aware it of through the ID Discovery Institute’s Evolution News and Views rather than Sy himself. His co-authors are Perry Marshall, whose 2015 Evolution 2.0 sought to bridge the gap between conventional evolutionary theory and Intelligent Design, and Stuart Kaufmann, one of the leading systems biologists and an advocate of “natural” self-organisation. A philosophically diverse trio!
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology, Theology of nature
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Societal revival
My last blog picked up on the widespread talk of Christian revival in this country, and discussed how true revival is far broader than the usually-held idea, recalling the Great Awakening, of big meetings accompanied by spectacular spiritual and/or psychological phenomena. As was actually true in the eighteenth century too, the key thing was a general realisation that the current religion was failing, and a God-given hunger directed at biblical salvation in Jesus. The rest was contingent detail.
Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Revival v. Revivalism
In the past I’ve expressed scepticism about the whole concept of Christian “revival,” suggesting that this non-biblical word became fixed in the Evangelical mindset in a particular form through the atypical spiritual, sociological and psychological example of the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century. I wrote about this in Prophecy Today in 2003, in two articles which I later re-posted on The Hump, here and here.
Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology
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Putting on the agony, putting on the Lifestyle Christianity
Another week, and yet another miracle working apostle is exposed as a fraud and abuser. In this case, a bevy of YouTube clips tell me, it’s some dread-locked ex-addict called Todd White, who founded an outfit called Lifestyle Christianity but has now been exposed by his own people as living the lifestyle of Satan instead.
Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology
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