Kontakion

The Centenary Campaign was a joint venture by the Northern and Southern church of the Methodist Church. The efforts of the centenary campaign were two fold. The first and immediate end was a celebration in Columbus Ohio in 1919. This celebration was fused with a celebration of democracy due to the ending of World War I (WWI). The second purpose was to increase missional giving and general missionary activity around the world. The amount of money was daunting. The North committed to raising, $113,741,455, and the South $35,787,338, both of these figures would be exceeded by pledges and subscriptions. At this time in history anything seemed possible. It wasn’t long though before this mindset backfired. As the years went on there was a general malaise of participation with the church. America spun into the Great Depression, and mission activity was more difficult than in years past. The difficulty lied in the fact that the church could no longer depend on the sword of colonia...

Since I'm in full swing now with classes I have decided to forgo writing on the Articles of Religion until after the semester. What I hope to do instead is to post some of my papers from class and thoughts I may have on the text books and so on.

“The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.” – BOD This is a very basic definition of the Holy Spirit (which is the term I prefer). At this point no depth is given to the function of the Holy Spirit or its implication for the Christian walk. Of course some of these items will be returned to later when we encounter doctrines of sanctification. However I do feel that our lack of development on the Holy Spirit is an issue. I come from a Pentecostal family. I was born and raised (until the 6th grade) in the Foursquare Gospel Church. The Foursquare Church has had a huge impact upon the life of my family. Our original inclination to the idea of sanctification came from them, which is why I think we fit so well within the United Methodist Church. Also my brother is a Foursquare Gospel minister with a congregation in Indiana. When you look across the Christian spectrum today you wil...

This book drove me nuts. First off it is only 139 pages including all the notes which are utterly useless. Borg takes his time picking apart Christology, a subject that in my rejection of Borg I would claim he knows nothing about. Borg attempts to attack basic Christian assumptions about Christ (a term in this book that Borg would disagree with) however he doesn’t lay his own assumptions out, in fact he is quite hypocritical of his own practice. The primary example is that Borg refuses to use a lot of passages in the Gospel for explanation of Jesus because Jesus wouldn’t have had anything to do with them. However in a later part of the book when speaking of Paul (yes our earliest Christian documents) he quotes a verse and acknowledges that Paul didn’t say it but that it was Pauline in nature. If you can use something that wasn’t Paul’s to prove your point, something that may have been redacted in, or written later after the gospels than why can’t you use what is presented in the ...

Well this is it today marks the beginning of the end. This is the final semester in my seminary education. By the end of this semester I will have more education than anyone has ever had in my family. I will have also ended an 8 year process of education. I spent 5 years at Valley Forge Christian College, and the past 2.5 at Lancaster Theological Seminary. Because my degree was in pastoral ministry in undergrad I have spent some time comparing the two institutions to one another and I must say that I prefer evangelical education to liberal any day. That is not to say that I regret coming to Lancaster but the explanation will require more space than I’m willing to dedicate here. Suffice it for now to say that I look toward graduation with hopes and anxiety. My first day of class for the new semester will be on Wednesday so for all out there please pray for me (particularly that I will have patience with the system).