Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Unity Day at Trinity UCC in Chicago

Sunday, August 10, 2008. It’s Unity Day at TUCC. This summer, the church’s capable young pastor, Otis Moss III, is preaching through 1 Samuel to 1000+ crowds at the 11 a.m. service (additional services at 7:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.). In a subsequent post, I will dwell on the peculiar quality of a 3 hour worship service that is evangelical at its core with strands of liberation theology and re-enculturation woven in. For the moment, a bald outline.

Unity Day at Barack Obama’s Church of Origin: What the MSM will never tell you

 

As someone who has attended Trinity UCC on 95th Street in Chicago six or seven times over the last decade, I wish to state what is obvious to anyone who knows the facts: Barack Obama is a worthy son of a worthy congregation. The purpose of this post is not to advance Obama’s presidential campaign, nor to hinder it. Its purpose is to open a window onto the spiritual roots of Barack Obama and his family by way of a diary of a visit to Trinity on Sunday, August 10, 2008.

 

How to Read the Book of Proverbs

Many people find it difficult to distinguish between fact and truth. It is in the nature of things that facts and truth sometimes collide, but the contradiction is minimized by some and denied by others.

If a distinction between fact and truth is not made, much of the content of the book of Proverbs will be misconstrued. A competent reader, not only of Proverbs and much else in the Bible, but of a great number of moral, philosophical, and/or theological assertions, will be aware of the distinction, even if it goes unmarked in the language of assertion itself.

Defusing the Comp Egal Debate

The comp-egal debate needs to be defused by recognition of some obvious facts. Otherwise the discussion grows ugly, with one or both sides blasting the opposing framework, not only by hate-inducing labels, but by means of examples designed to demonstrate that the opposing framework enables unhealthy behavior.

The Comp Egal Debate: A Plea for More Accurate Terminology

Is it possible to have a constructive conversation among people with very different points of view on the role of religion in making gender-differentiated demands on the faithful and fostering gender-differentiated expectations with respect to leadership in the home, the workplace, institutions of learning, and worship?

Biblical Studies Carnival XXXII Part Three (Done)

Posts on Specific Texts

The number of really excellent posts by biblical bloggers on specific texts continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Here is a representative sample from last month. My apologies to everyone who posted on other texts, but whose posts are not listed: there is only so much one person can read and get around to writing up.

Biblical Studies Carnival XXXII Part Two

Controversies

Handling Commenters Who Overstep your Bounds

What is a blogger to do when a commenter hijacks a thread for the purposes of an agenda at cross-purposes with the blogger’s own? Doug Chaplin lays down a set of house rules, go here and here for more discussion. Notice how well Justin Anthony Knapp understands the rules in his comment thereto.