Category: Blog
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One Step Beyond Chalcedon
The Chalcedonian definition draws boundaries which clearly mark the limits within which orthodox thinking on the incarnation can take place. I’ve written about the greatness of Chalcedon elsewhere. But it is one thing to praise Chalcedon for doing this boundary-drawing, and another thing to say that this is all Chalcedon does. There is no need…
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Revisioning History in Turkey
Earlier this month I had the privilege of traveling to Turkey and Greece with 45 undergraduate students from the Torrey Honors Institute. First, it was a great trip! What a great opportunity for someone who wrote a doctoral dissertation on a twelfth-century Byzantine author (that’s me!) to visit the heart of the former Byzantine empire.…
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A Day in the Life of Wu Oi Ying at B.I.O.L.A.
In 1921, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (later Biola College, now Biola University) published a story in its magazine The King’s Business, entitled “A Day in a Bible Institute.” The editors wanted to describe for their readers a typical day at the downtown Bible Institute at the corner of 6th and Hope. They…
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The Who? What? Where? When? and Why? of the Emerging Church
I’ve just finished up co-teaching a class on ‘Readings in Emerging Church Theology’ with Ron Benefiel at Nazarene Theological Seminary. What a joy to be talking church, theology and ministry with pastors-in-training! Too many conversations on this subject begin, ‘What exactly is the emerging church?’ The response is some variation on, ‘Um…well…it’s sort of…well, it’s…
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Trinity Statue
The San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor is an art museum with a notable sculpture collection. It is most famous for its seventy works by Auguste Rodin, the greatest set of Rodin sculptures anywhere in the world besides the actual Musee Rodin. But the city’s collection of medieval art is also housed here,…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part III)
Read Part I here, and Part II here. One final method for practicing silence and solitude is what I call a ‘solitude retreat’. (3) Once or twice a year, go alone on a solitude retreat from 9 am one day until 5 pm the next day. Go to a retreat center that has as one…
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Heven is a Wonderful Place
Freddy Age Six, by special request, delivers a vision of heaven rendered in his medium of choice, washable markers. To what shall we liken the kingdom of heaven? Heaven (or, as the stylized swirly writing in the upper right corner has it, “heven”) is a kind of castle city. There are angels everywhere: I see…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part II)
Read Part I here, and Part III here. Two regular practices of solitude and silence: First, you must remember that when you go into solitude and silence, your basic goal is to do nothing. Yes, nothing! You are to center yourself in quiet and rest. As you do that, you also focus on centering your…
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Hobbits is From Kentucky!
When J. R. R. Tolkien was a student at Oxford, he found that one of his classmates (Allen Barnett) was from the state of Kentucky, and that this classmate had a lot of good stories about how Kentucky folk talk, behave, and live. Tolkien pumped Barnett for all the Kentucky info he could get out…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part I)
Read Part II here, and Part III here. Throughout his writings and lectures, Dallas Willard has warned that the hardest thing to get North American people to do is nothing. The regular practice of doing nothing is crucial for spiritual growth. It keeps us from having an inflated view of our importance, it surfaces anxiety,…
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Two Lost Dogs Bark in Berkeley
Last Thursday (June 7, 2007), Terry Taylor and Mike Roe, two members of the Lost Dogs, played an intimate acoustic concert for a group of Biola students studying in the Torrey Berkeley program. Taylor and Roe are both accomplished singer-songwriters in their own rights, and over their years of touring and recording together, their collaboration…