Thomas J. Oord was recently fired by Northwest Nazarene University. For full disclosure, before I was Orthodox, I spent time as a Nazarene. I have met Oord once or twice at conferences, and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. What I do know is the man had name recognition in the academy. That’s a pretty big deal when you consider the packed playing field. Not many theologians from Nazarene institutions garner the kind of respect he has. Continue reading “What the Hell is Going on at NNU?”
Category: Theology
Teaching My Children Civil Disobedience: What I Learned from Jesus, King, and Gandhi
School staff — administrators, aides, and teachers — have a hard job. So I have always made it clear to my children that if they are having problems with adults at school, they were going to have to tough it out. Of course, I was lying a little, but my kids did not need to know about the emails or conversations I would have with school staff from time-to-time. I wanted them to learn to obey the people in charge of them. That is, until last week. Last week, I told my kids to disobey. Continue reading “Teaching My Children Civil Disobedience: What I Learned from Jesus, King, and Gandhi”
John Milbank’s Nazarene Heritage
The Church of the Nazarene (CoN) arose out of the American Holiness Movement, and the Anglo-Catholic British theologian, John Milbank, has roots in it. I find this to be a pretty interesting fact in itself. I imagine the young John Milbank (who in my mind looks exactly the way he does now, only shorter), sitting cross-armed at a revival service while ladies with big hair and no jewelry run up and down the aisle shouting, “Glory!” Continue reading “John Milbank’s Nazarene Heritage”
Sergei Bulgakov on Pens and Supernovas
The other night, my wife happened to dig up an old notebook. I flipped through its pages and happened upon this quotation from Sergei Bulgakov:
My moving my pen on a piece of paper, thus redistributing the atoms of ink, paper, the steel of the pen, and so on, is in principle just such a cosmic event as astronomical or geological catastrophes, though perhaps of lesser force (and even this is not certain, for we cannot measure these two events against each other).
Fr. Thomas Hopko on the Role of the Priest in the Divine Liturgy
As I write this, Fr. Thomas Hopko lies at death’s door. I have not always agreed with him, but I have had nothing but deep respect for him. I am sorry I never got to meet him in person. May his memory be eternal!
A few years ago I was at a conference, presenting a paper on women’s ordination. In that paper I made a point that the way Fr. Thomas Hopko thought about the priest as an icon of Christ had some Donatist implications. Continue reading “Fr. Thomas Hopko on the Role of the Priest in the Divine Liturgy”
Public Theology in the Post-Secular?
I recently read/pillaged an article by Linell Cady which calls for a re-evaluation of the role and methods of public theology in light of our post-secular context (brill.com/ijpt).
The term “public theology” appears to have been coined by Martin Marty. It was a liberal Christian response to a growing religio-political fundamentalism. Of course, religio-political fundamentalism (i.e. the religious right) was itself responding to secularization. So, in a way, public theology attempted to be a better, more “right” kind of response. Think of it as the “B” side of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, but with a smaller PR budget. Continue reading “Public Theology in the Post-Secular?”