The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Blog

  • Gordon Kaufman (1925-2011): Theologian of God in Quotes

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    Fred Sanders
    in

    In late July, theologian Gordon Kaufman died. His death is noted by Harvard Divinity School, where he taught for over 45 years. “The depth and scale of Kaufman’s work, and his placement at Harvard,” noted Gary Dorrien in 2006, “made him the leading theological liberal in the estimation of many observers. Often he was cited…

  • "Deep Things" as Seminary Textbook

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    Fred Sanders
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    I’ve been really glad to see that my 2010 book The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything has been adopted as a textbook by professors at several seminaries. I wrote the book for a general audience, including Christians without formal theological training, but it’s meaty enough for grad students, and I’ve been…

  • Archduke Otto von Habsburg: A Belated Eulogy

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    Robert Llizo
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    It has been one month since the passing of one of my greatest heroes of the twentieth century. I heard of his passing from my friend Charles Coulombe when I rang him that day, July 4. Both of us agreed that he had been a salient influence in our lives from childhood. He had been…

  • Evangelicals Recommending Books

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    Fred Sanders
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    A hundred years ago, in a 1911 issue of The King’s Business, the founders of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles made this proclamation: “Buying and selling books with some, is like buying and selling potatoes –a mere perfunctory business. With us, buying and selling books is a matter of as much spiritual import as…

  • Inexhaustible and Incessant (Coleridge on Wesley)

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    Fred Sanders
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    John Wesley wrote, “Holiness is the life of God in the soul; the image of God fresh stamped on the heart, an entire renewal of the mind in every temper and thought, after the likeness of Him that created it.” Robert Southey, poet laureate of England, quoted that saying in his Life of Wesley. Samuel…

  • Magic Isn’t Might, No Matter What Warner Bros. Says

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    Diane Vincent
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    The final movie of the Harry Potter series is mundane where it should be magical, and magical when it should be mundane. (SPOILERS BELOW!) When you look back to the early Harry Potter movies, it’s hard to remember in this last that you’re in the same world, a world in which there was a multitude…

  • Calvinists Who Love Wesley

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    Fred Sanders
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    Calvinists sometimes behave as if their Reformed credentials give them a free pass to forget there ever was a John Wesley, or that he is to be reckoned one of the good guys, or that he, being dead, yet speaks. They keep their distance as if Wesley were the carrier of a theological disease, to…

  • Hogglecroggles

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    Fred Sanders
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    John Wesley grew up in Epworth, Lincolnshire, before going to boarding school in London and then up to Oxford. At some point he drew up a list of Lincolnshire dialect terms. Richard P. Heitzenrater prints that list on p. 155 of The Elusive Mr. Wesley. I recommend reading it out loud. I don’t know which…

  • Does Bono Really Believe in Love?

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    Matt Jenson
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    My dear friend and Scriptorium Daily’s own Paul Spears is at the U2 concert tonight with his lovely wife Lisa. Tomorrow night, my old buddy Mike French gets to go. They will bask in the glow of 30 years of the best rock-and-roll ever right here in the middle of Orange County. In only mildly…

  • Pietism—What Is It Good For?

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    Matt Jenson
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    It is a truth universally acknowledged (among theologians, or at least most of them), that a Christian in possession of a Pietistic spirituality, must be in want of a social ethic. Pietists, those champions of heart religion, those prototypes of today’s experience-driven religion, were so heavenly-minded they could not possibly have been of any earthly…

  • Happy Birthday, Charles Feinberg

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    Fred Sanders
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    Today (June 12) is the birthday of Charles L. Feinberg (1909-1995), the Old Testament scholar whose name and scholarly reputation were synonymous with Biola’s. Feinberg left a rich legacy of biblical studies (see below), especially in the form of careful biblical expositions shaped by his Hebrew-Christian consciousness and his dispensational commitments. I don’t see much…

  • Here Comes Pentecost: Good Books on the Holy Spirit

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    Fred Sanders
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    Hey, according to the liturgical calendar, it’s Pentecost Sunday! Quick, think about the Holy Spirit. Here are some of my favorite books on pneumatology, off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m leaving out a few even better books, but there’s an embarrassment of riches on this topic. Athanasius, Letters to Serapion on the…