Recent posts

Jesus and the Hell Houses
An article by Lucy Broadbent in today’s Times Magazine describes the current Hell House phenomenon and its impact on teenagers. Churches such as Trinity Church in Dallas present shocking tableaux of classroom massacres, date rape, abortions (with real theatrical blood and pieces of real meat… ( | 0 comments)
The future of the New Testament and the Sibylline Oracles
My argument in both The Coming of the Son of Man and Re: Mission is that New Testament eschatology – that is, the interest that the New Testament has in critical future events – can for the most part be mapped against a historical narrative that interprets, first, the destruction… ( | 0 comments)
The continuing war between Emergents and Reformed over the cross
The war in America between Emergents and Reformed is a depressing business. A recent piece by Greg Gilbert on the 9Marks blog (Not Just Important, Not Even Just VERY Important. "Of FIRST Importance.") expresses satisfaction that defensive measures taken against the insurgents have 'effectively cut… ( | 0 comments)
Why did Jesus write on the ground?
The story of the woman caught in adultery who is dragged by the scribes and Pharisees to Jesus for judgment (John 7:53-8:11) is a fascinating one, for various reasons. I made extensive use of it in a sermon on gentleness at Crossroads in the Hague yesterday – I love the way that Jesus stills the… ( | 1 comment)
John Piper and the imputation of a real moral righteousness
Reading through John Piper’s response to N.T. Wright, The Future of Justification (see also Piper’s objections to Wright’s ‘good news’), and not having much of a background in Reformed theology, I found myself repeatedly asking where the idea that the real moral righteousness… ( | 0 comments)
Martin Robinson on shifts in the European church
Martin Robinson (National Director of Together in Mission) is sounding upbeat about the church in the UK and Europe. In a short video clip that can be found on the Roxburgh Missional Network site, he suggests that although churches still face considerable difficulties and challenges, there has… ( | 0 comments)
Piper's objections to Wright's 'good news'
One of the more peculiar objections that John Piper raises against Wright’s understanding of Paul’s ‘gospel’ is that the announcement that Jesus is Lord ‘is an absolutely terrifying message to a sinner who has spent all his life ignoring or blaspheming the God and Father of the Lord… ( | 0 comments)
Sweet and Viola: A Jesus Manifesto
Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola have recently issued A Magna Carta of Restoring the Supremacy of Jesus Christ, a.k.a. A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church. They argue in the preamble that Christianity is nothing more, nothing less than Christ, but that in the church today there is a serious… ( | 0 comments)
The particularity of the people of God
Mike Morrell prompted me initially to respond to Kevin Beck’s This Book Will Change Your World, and has now posted some thought-provoking comments. Since they mainly have to do with the thesis of Re: Mission, a new post seems in order. His basic argument, if I have… ( | 0 comments)
Katongole: How postmodernism hurts Africa
In ‘Postmodern illusions and performances’, the fourth essay in A Future for Africa, Emmanuel Katongole argues that postmodernism is unlikely to prove the blessing for Africa that many had hoped. He accepts that it continues to have some usefulness as an intellectual style that casts… ( | 0 comments)
The limited ambitions of the people of God
William Cheriegate asked me to expand on the following remark in my post on Transmillennialism – not least for the benefit of those who ‘grew up in the midst of a conquering American “christian” empire’: To my mind, the Bible has lower expectations about the nature of the impact of the people of… ( | 0 comments)
On Transmillennialism and Kevin Beck's This Book Will Change Your World
I read Kevin Beck’s This Book Will Change Your World in response to some gentle and persistent prompting from Mike Morrell. As Mike observes, there are some interesting similarities and some distinct differences between Kevin’s exposition of Transmillenialism and the thesis of… ( | 0 comments)
Katongole: Communities of memory
In the first essay, ‘Remembering Idi Amin’, Katongole explores his own childhood memories of Idi Amin in an attempt to understand how the present condition of Africa has been shaped by memories of colonial and post-colonial brutality. He notices that his ‘happy’ memories of the early period of Amin… ( | 0 comments)
Emmanuel Katongole and A Future for Africa
I have started reading Emmanuel Katongole’s A Future for Africa: Critical Essays in Christian Social Imagination as preparation for the Amahoro conference in Johannesburg in a couple of weeks. Katongole is a Catholic priest from Uganda who is now associate professor of theology at… ( | 0 comments)
Is that third horizon just a mirage?
Mike Morrell has articulated a good question about the thesis of The Coming of the Son of Man and Re: Mission. It comes down to this: Given the metaphorical potential of biblical language, what keeps us from deflating all apparently final language to historical… ( | 3 comments)
Should we still be making disciples?
I have argued a couple of times recently that Jesus’ post-resurrection instruction to his followers to make disciples of all nations, which we call the Great Commission, is actually more restricted in its scope than we have traditionally understood it to be. There was some discussion of this point… ( | 2 comments)
Does the future lie with the global church or with the emerging church?
There was an interesting article in the UK Times yesterday about the global success of ‘US-style muscular Christianity’ - that is, evangelicalism. The article is by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge and is based on their book God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the… ( | 0 comments)
What is a missional church? And why I think Mark Driscoll is wrong
I forget quite how I got there - by what tortuous cyber-trail - but I came across a post on Mark Driscoll’s Resurgence blog promoting his new book Vintage Church, in which he touches on the question of what ‘missional church’ is. Driscoll is not naïve. Even from this brief statement… ( | 1 comment)
No, it's not all about AD 70
I’ve just been listening to what strikes me as an excellent introductory podcast on eschatology by Martin Scott - a nice example of how a rethinking of eschatology along narrative-historical lines has the potential for generating good new theological syntheses. It caught my eye because Martin… ( | 0 comments)
The death of Jesus for the nation
The Pharisees and chief priests warn the Sanhedrin that if the Jesus’ movement gets out of control, ‘the Romans will come and take away both our place (arousin hēmōn… ton topon) and our nation’ – in Caiaphas’ words, the nation will ‘perish’ (Jn. 11:48, 50). There is at least a hint… ( | 0 comments)