Author: Chris Gehrz

Marcus Mumford

A Mainline Critique of “Spiritual, but Not Religious”

March 19, 2013

I can’t imagine that too many pastors serving a United Church of Christ congregation have had their arguments featured in multiple evangelical publications within a three-day period, but that’s what Lillian Daniel of First Congregationalist Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois accomplished earlier this month. First, Christianity Today ran a review by Andrew Byers of Daniel’s … More A Mainline Critique of “Spiritual, but Not Religious”

Hollingworth, Saint Augustine of Hippo

Francis and Augustine

March 18, 2013

As I wrote in my second post inspired by the election of a new pope, there’s been much parsing of the choice of the name Francis. In a meeting with global media Saturday at which he called for a “poor church for the poor,” the pontiff himself confirmed the widespread assumption that he took the … More Francis and Augustine

Moroder-Lusenberg, Saint Francis

First Impressions of a “Pope of Firsts” (part 2)

March 15, 2013

It scarcely seems possible to keep up with all the reporting and analysis on the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, as the newest pope — the “pope of firsts,” say many commentators. And in this second post passing along a couple more themes I’ve noticed in what I have managed to … More First Impressions of a “Pope of Firsts” (part 2)

Judson College (AL)

The Affordability of Evangelical Colleges and Universities

March 14, 2013

Back in January, Pres. Obama used part of his State of the Union address to generate enormous traffic for a page at the Department of Education (DOE) website: a “College Scorecard” that provided easy-to-understand data on the net cost, graduation rate, debt burden, and loan default rate for institutions of higher learning in this country, … More The Affordability of Evangelical Colleges and Universities

Cardinal Bergoglio

First Impressions of a “Pope of Firsts” (part 1)

March 14, 2013

Even for a Protestant like myself who belongs to a church that has gone so far as to do away with an episcopate altogether, the election of a new bishop of Rome is innately interesting and even a bit exciting. Like almost everyone out there, I knew next to nothing about Jorge Bergoglio except that … More First Impressions of a “Pope of Firsts” (part 1)

Shantz, An Introduction to German Pietism

Douglas Shantz’s An Introduction to German Pietism

March 13, 2013

The revival of Pietism studies continues! As of last week, the newest book published by Johns Hopkins University Press is An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe, by Douglas Shantz. Holder of the chair of Christian thought at the University of Calgary, Shantz contributed a chapter to our Pietist … More Douglas Shantz’s An Introduction to German Pietism

Brethren in Christ, 1911

“Jesus within us”: Pietism in the Brethren in Christ Church

March 12, 2013

I linked to it on Saturday, but the Spring 2013 issue of In Part, the denominational magazine of the Brethren in Christ Church (BIC), deserves its own spotlight here, since it focuses on Pietism. It’s the second in a series of four special issues, each focused on the four theological traditions that have shaped the … More “Jesus within us”: Pietism in the Brethren in Christ Church