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If you curious about the religious breakdown of the United States, this map is quite insightful. It is almost five years old, so it might be slightly out of date, but it should still be relatively representative of the country's demographics.
After reading two of Timothy Wengert's books on Master Philipp, I find my sympathy for the Lutheran humanist theologian has only grown. There is something tragic about how those he admires (Erasmus) or considers friends (John Agricola) end up turning on him.
At least he didn't end up exiled like Bucer.
Collin Morris gives a very true observation about Peter Abelard: he “had a talent for expressing new truths in an awkward form.”
If you are looking to understand various readings of Genesis 1-3 within the PCA, you could do far worse than to read the Report of the Creation Study Committee. It does a superb job of breaking down some of the more complex views within the bounds of our denomination, including the Analogical Day and Framework views.
More importantly, it models the humble attitude we should take towards those with whom we disagree on such matters:
Nevertheless, our goal has been to enhance the unity, integrity, faithfulness and proclamation of the Church. Therefore we are presenting a unanimous report with the understanding that the members hold to different exegetical viewpoints. As to the rest we are at one. It is our hope and prayer that the Church at large can join us in a principled, Biblical recognition of both the unity and diversity we have regarding this doctrine, and that all are seeking properly to understand biblical revelation. It is our earnest desire not to see our beloved church divide over this issue.
Ephraim Emerton describes Martin Bucer's reaction to the writings of Michael Servetus:
Bucer in Strassburg, often known as the Peacemaker of the Reformation, seems at first to have listened with some patience, if not actual interest, to the Spaniard's vagaries, but now, having read his book, he publicly declares that such a man ought to be disembowelled and torn to pieces.
Not all peacemaking is created equal.
My fellow theo-blogger and colleague, Travis McMaken; succinctly puts his finger on something I've been mulling over concerning Evangelicalism:
The really strange thing about this quote is that the things Barth identifies as present-day (in terms of 1920's Germany) tendencies emanating from Schleiermacher — “church life, experiential piety, historicism, psychologism, and ethicism” — are precisely the things that seem to me to be holding the field within contemporary American evangelicalism, in many ways. It is a well-worn trope of comic books and action movies that one is always in danger of becoming what one fights against. Have evangelicals started becoming liberals, in the classic European sense of the term?
I think he is on to something — read in a vacuum, Schleiermacher sounds remarkably “Evangelical” or Evangelicals can sound remarkably Schleiermachean. That Barth was identifying the same problematic tendencies in the Church of his day highlights the strength with which these sirens of theology sing.
Travis continues with a challenging question worth considering:
If so, how advanced are the symptoms, what is the prognosis, and what can be done to combat this malady?
While the ideas of Thomas and Calvin overlap a great deal (more than is often admitted), their agreement does not always seem obvious at the surface level. Certain key words differ in ways that create the appearance of a chasm between the scholastic and the reformer where such does not necessarily exist. Paul Helm has a nice essay that looks at one of those areas: common grace and natural law.
To say that a human ability or activity is the effect of common grace or that it is the working of nature, human nature, are thus two ways of saying the same thing, or almost the same thing. What the phrase 'common grace' brings out is that these abilities and activities, as found in fallen and unregenerate human nature, are the result of undeserved, divine goodness. The effects of the Fall on human nature could have been worse than they are, and why they are not worse than they are is due to God's undeserved goodness. 'Nature' looks at the same phenomenon from another angle, focusing on the persisting structures of human nature.
The Financial Times has an interesting piece on the Archbishop of Canterbury, which touches on the question of whether the Anglican Church is helped or hurt by being established:
Some of his colleagues were appalled when he raised the issue of disestablishment 18 months ago. This would give in “to a widespread and ignorant view that the Christian faith has nothing to contribute to public life”, fulminated Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester. Yet, might it be that separating church and state is a route back to the public square?
The new issue of the Journal of International and Global Studies is out and you can find yours truly's review of Robert Wright's the Evolution of God in it on pages 183-186. Wright utilizes game theory to propose a model for the development of religion and an agnostic argument for the continuation of religion that prove thoroughly interesting. He explains his ideas in a most engaging, often humorous style. But, the argument has significant flaws that you can read about if you hop on over there.
I have been reading Edmund Clowney's the Church for one of my classes. While at first I was not sure I was going to like the book, as I have gotten further into it, it has amazed me with how precisely Clowney hits on the major issues within the church and even ones I thought might be considered generally minor but are of great interest to me.
Juxtaposed with the reading of Clowney, we were assigned to read our denominational book of order for three hours. I found reading the Book of Church Order (BCO) for that time with no goal other than gaining a greater understanding of the “territory” caused me to discover quite a few interesting things I was not even looking for and find several others I now know I need to dig into more thoroughly.
I am really enjoying the study of ecclesiology this semester.
