Evangelical Philosophical Society

Same old URL, sweet new look. Check out the updated website here.

Incidentally, we are honored to be listed on EPS’s website as a web resource.

Happy Reformation Day

According to tradition, October 31st of 1517 was the day that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a door of a church in Wittenberg. So in honor of Luther, I have posted the Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences below for you to survey if you like. Enjoy!

On the nature of being a Rockies (bandwagon) fan Part.1

One of my friends that I work with commented yesterday that he was sick of all the “bandwagon” fans that got into the Rockies this season in their journey to the World Series. Now, I must admit, he is a true fan and loves baseball. However, is his implicit premise (that it is wrong to be a Rockies bandwagon fan) defensible? Well, I don’t think a simple yes or no answer will suffice. I believe that the arrival of a person to the place where they might be classified as a “bandwagon” fan is much more complicated than one might initially think and requires an evaluation on a case by case basis. Consider my argument from personal experience:

Thomas Madden responds to “Jesus Tomb” documentary

See it here (Fox 2 News, St Louis (Mar. 5, 2007).

Pullman’s Golden Compass

Vol. 1 of atheist Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials, is set to debut as a major motion picture starring Nicole Kidman on Dec. 7, 2007. It’s titled “The Golden Compass.” That it “features a little girl on a quest to kill God has some Christian groups upset over what they believe is a ploy to promote atheism to kids.”

The Philippian Hymn

The history of interpretation of this passage shows that scholars draw on multiple ideas or backgrounds to understand how this hymn was formed. Undoubtedly, it predated the composition of the epistle to the Philippians. Scholars have suggested that we are to understand it through a number of paradigms (Isaiah 45;52-53, stories of suffereing righteousness, Greco-Roman rulership, gnostic redeemer, etc.). Regardless of which lens one uses to interpret this passage (and you will use a lens to interpret), it is a beautiful passage that has many implications for how Kingdom agents ought to conduct themselves (in relationships, politics, economics, personal endeavors, etc.).

The Kent Mathews Endowed Lectureship in Christian Social Ethics Series: “Expanding the Ethical Agenda: An Evangelical Imperative”, on October 29 and 30, 2007.

Dr. Alice Mathews is the Academic Dean and the Lois W. Bennett Distinguished Emerita Professor of Educational Ministries and Women’s Ministries at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Randy, have endowed the Kent Mathews Endowed Lectureship in Christian Social Ethics at Denver Seminary in honor of their son, which provides Denver Seminary the opportunity to annually host a lectureship in the relevant area of Christian social ethics. This year Dr. Mathews will join two other lecturers, Denver Seminary’s very own social ethics experts Chancellor Vernon Grounds and Dr. Dieumeme Noelliste, Professor of Theological Ethics and Director of the Vernon Grounds Institute of Public Ethics.

Schedule:

On Christian Temperance

I agree with Lewis:

I do however strongly object to the tyrannic and unscriptural insolence of anything that calls itself a Church and makes tee-totalism a condition of membership. Apart from the more serious objection (that our Lord Himself turned water into wine and made wine the medium of the only rite He imposed on all His followers) it is so provincial (what I believe you people call ‘small town’).

C.S. Lewis, Letter to Mrs. Johnson of 16/3/1955, in Collected Letters Vol. 3, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harper, 2007).

Hmmm…

I just spilled coffee all over a few pages of Heidegger’s Being and Time. I think it was an accident, but I must admit that subconsciously it may have been intentional.

Catholics & Protestants sharing the Eucharist?

& inventing a new mass, and there is more folks. Go here. Perhaps this is an international symptom of the fever of unity concerning Evangelical-Catholic relations that Mark Noll speaks of in his book, Is the Reformation Over?

HT: Bill Vallicella