Category: Misc.
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Wait in the Means of Grace (John Wesley)
John Wesley was a great theologian of the grace of God, and he knew that grace is an invisible movement in which God sovereignly invades the heart of a believer. You can call it experiental or individualist or pietistic or emotional or whatever else you want to call it, but in all his preaching, Wesley…
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In All Things, Be Fearful
I just returned recently to southern California after a nice, long vacation with my family. As well, I was able to spend two good weeks at the National Institute for Newman Studies in Pittsburgh, PA. The Institute, run by the Pittsburgh Oratorians, is a research facility containing all the works of John Henry Newman as…
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Why C. S. Lewis Was Smarter Than Me Am
An excerpt from a letter that the 17-year-old C. S. Lewis wrote to his best friend: 12 October 1915 You ask me how I spend my time, and though I am more interested in thoughts and feelings, we’ll come down to facts. I am awakened up in the morning by Kirk splashing in his bath,…
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Scream No More!!!
John Wesley, in a letter to the American Methodist preacher John King in 1778: Scream no more at peril of your soul. God now warns you by me, whom he has set over you. Speak as earnestly as you can, but do not scream. Speak with all your heart, but with a moderate voice. It…
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When Faces Called Flowers Float Out of the Ground
I’ve been doing a whole lot of reading this summer. When I come up from my books for air I go outside to garden. And, while you readers are likely a bookish lot with whom I could share many bookish observations, I’d rather share with you some thoughts that my gardening has occasioned. Here are…
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Tangled Up in Blue
An hour ago I unloaded my things after a long drive down the 5, back from three weeks in Berkeley with two other faculty members, their families and thirty-some students. Every year, a crew of Torrey students and faculty live in Utopia, also known as the Westminster House in Berkeley. Mornings are for classes, afternoons…
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Reflections on Russia and England
I have just returned from a trip with 37 Torrey Honors students to Russia and England. What a great trip! Not only did I see the St. Petersburg of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I also had a chance to see The Merchant of Venice performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon. Mainly, however,…
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Two Lost Dogs in Berkeley
Thursday afternoon in Berkeley there was a small concert by Terry Taylor and Mike Roe, who are the two members of the Lost Dogs who live in northern California. Terry Taylor has been recording music since the 70s, Mike Roe since the 80s, and the Lost Dogs since the early 90s. These guys are, in…
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The Antics of Aimee
PBS’s American Experience did a show last year on Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), the Pentecostal evangelist so archetypal that her whole life read like a movie script. The PBS documentary movie was surprisingly good, featuring interviews with most of the leading scholars responsible for major publications on McPherson in the past decade (Edith Blumhofer, Anthea…
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Planet Narnia Author Michael Ward to Speak at Biola
The Torrey Honors Institute of Biola University is honored to have Cambridge’s own Dr. Michael Ward speaking for us this Monday evening on his new piece of C.S. Lewis scholarship. Through medieval cosmology, Planet Narnia claims to provide the imaginative key to understanding the Chronicles of Narnia. This work is already launching Dr. Ward to…
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Modrn TheoLOLgians
Fourth in a series. Click for Early Church, Medieval, and Reformation. Heres yr modrnz. Float yr mouse ovr teh jpgs 4 namez.
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Charles “Freshly” Wesley
Here’s a cartoon left on my office door by a Torrey student. Charles Wesley turned 300 this year. Who got the mad lyrical flow? I can’t hear you…