The Crossroads of Christianity and Culture

For a number of years Islamophobic politicians and pundits have been saying the Islam teaches that Muslims can lie to non-Muslims. In this short video I suggest we look at the facts.

All too often I'm asked about the status and role of women in Islam.  There is a lot to be said, and in my book Muslim Faith and Values Muslim women speak with their own voice. Here I want to point out a much bigger context that Christians often forget.

Part 2 of my introduction to the Islamic State - now focusing on the modern development of the idea.

The Islamic State, part 1. What Christians (and others) need to know. For more videos on Muslim Faith and Values: A Guide for Christians visit  Interfaith Encounters on YouTube

The odd thing about discussions of united Methodist unity is the extent to which they avoid talking about what really unites the Methodist movement.   On one hand we have the Wesley Covenant Association and its proposed new denomination.  You just have to read the proposed “Discipline” to see that they have reinvented the Wesleyan tradition as generic southern evangelicalism. The historical features of southern Methodism - a high liturgy and powerful bishops, is absent. What we have is a low liturgical tradition, weak bishops, and effective congregationalism.  Progressives on the other hand have reinvented the Wesleyan tradition as generic American social activism. If there is outrage on MSNBC they are on it and if there is a protest march they are in it. Even if it is a theologically complex issue; euthanasia, abortion, undocumented migration, they take a stand because that's what social activists do.   In my view only the centrists have preserved something that is...

The task given the apostolic church by Christ is to carry on the ministry of Jesus, to witness to his death and resurrection, and to worship in fellowship in the Holy Spirit.  The Christian community coheres around these tasks. The signs of this coherence are the two sacraments instituted by Jesus: the baptism that inaugurates disciples into mission and fellowship, and participation the reenactment of his last supper with his disciples that reiterates the fundamental story in which all disciples participate.  Despite this inheritance, clearly spelled out in scripture, rather early in its history the Christian church, particularly in it hierarchical forms, began seeking coherence by establishing secondary markers of identity and clear boundaries. The formation of hierarchical patterns of church leadership and relationship, culminating in the early church councils and the creeds created managed coherence.  Under the rubric of orthodoxy this managed coherence allowed for...

It has always been the necessity of speaking to those  “ foolish" gentiles that has broken the coherence of orthodoxy with the command of Christ to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel.  I’ve been reading the work, seriously theological and also more political, of the presently United Methodists who claim to represent what Dr. Billy Abraham calls a " robustly conservative or orthodox version of Methodism” (See  https://peopleneedjesus.net/2020/02/05/a-happy-death-and-a-hopeful-future/ .)  Four themes emerge.  The  first is the idea of orthodoxy as “what the church has always and everywhere believed.” Because this reaches into the deep past of the church, particularly to the creeds which fix the canon, it is both conservative and claims to be part of a coherent theological and ethical tradition stretching back to the apostles.  The second is the idea of coherence per se. Dr. Abraham’s article claims that the UMC was incoherent from the ...