Author: Fred Sanders
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Theology and California: The Book
I’m pleased to announce the publication of a strange, new book: Theology and California: Theological Refractions on California’s Culture (Ashgate, 2014), edited by Jason Sexton and me. It’s available in hardcover for your libraries, softcover with a gorgeous cover photo, and e-book for portability. As Kevin Vanhoozer asks back-handedly on the back cover, “Theology is…
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Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928-2014), Theological Outflanker
Wolfhart Pannenberg, retired from a long theology career at Munich, has died at age 85. Pannenberg was a major twentieth-century theologian by any count, with a series of brilliant articles, important books on the topics of revelation, christology, ethics, science, anthropology, and metaphysics, and a hefty 3-volume Systematic Theology to cap off his career. Pannenberg was…
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Amateurs Needed for the School of Translators
Last year, four professors from Torrey gave brief talks on some of our favorite 20th-century Christian thinkers (Chesterton, Sayers, Tolkien, Lewis). Videos of the talks are here; the whole thing was pretty obviously an excuse to collaborate with Chris Mitchell on a project where he could share his expertise with the whole Biola faculty. But…
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One of Those Critters
Here is a link to some footage of Bob Warren, who died last week, doing his thing: teaching. This is vintage Bob –although in one sense this footage is not characteristic of him, in that he doesn’t have his Bible open and he’s not digging away at a text. In every other way, though, this…
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A Much-Needed Gap
Recently I read a witty novel written entirely in the form of letters of recommendation. It reminded me of some spoofs I’ve seen in various places, which I would describe a satires of the genre of recommendation letter. These things have floated around in photocopied form since before the internet, and I can’t trace their…
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Recommended: Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members
As the academic year rolls back around, I usually end up reading a late-summer silly novel. Nothing eases the pain of being a grown-up with a job quite like a dose of Wodehouse –though Alexander McCall Smith and Jack Handey also work pretty well. I need more from a late-summer silly novel than just a…
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“Grace motivates permanently, on all levels.” Bob Warren (1946-2014)
Bob Warren died this week, and I’m remembering the four years I spent studying the Bible with him in the late 1980s. Bob was a Bible teacher in Hardin, Kentucky, just a few miles down the road from Murray State University, where I went to college. He did some hog farming as well at that…
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“The Intelligence Can Only be Led by Desire.” (Simone Weil)
I love to argue with Simone Weil (1909-1943)’s essay “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.” Then again, I love to argue with Simone Weil. Her writings always have something in them that catches me and lures me in –but then I find that I can’t…
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Erasmus Milks Ephesians
Erasmus of Rotterdam taught the Renaissance world how to take a thought and expand it, expound it, extrapolate it into a fountain of new expressions and novel turns of phrase. His “abundant style” bore much fruit for the students who learned it from him. But the most fruitful use to which Erasmus himself put his powers…
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9 Papers on Locating Atonement for Los Angeles Theology Conference 2015
Locating Atonement, the 2015 Los Angeles Theology Conference, will be held January 15-16 on the campus of Biola University. Convinced that “theories and models” is a tired way of talking about the theology of the atonement, a trope with some limited pedagogical usefulness but not much prospect, we have designed LATC 2015 to do something…
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Well To Start With, Your Last Theologian Was A Idiot
I’ve spent a little time this summer with contractors and plumbers and concrete guys and appliance repairmen, and by “I’ve spent time with” I mean “I’ve been paying.” Like most things that aren’t theology, it has reminded me of theology. There’s a dynamic that occurs whenever you bring in a repairman: He takes a look…
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The Common Room: What did John Wesley Make of 1 John?
The Common Room: Dr. Matt Jenson and Dr. Fred Sanders discuss the topic, “What did John Wesley Make of 1 John?” Watch the video here: