In honour of our FIFTIETH episode of Mere Fidelity, this week we bring you a question and answer session with the whole cast. Enjoy!
Please leave any thoughts that you might have on the podcast in the comments.
You can also follow the podcast on iTunes, or using this RSS feed.
I am going to be taking a break from most online activity over the next few months, until the start of 2016. Starting from midnight tonight, this means no Twitter (with minor exceptions for necessary DMs), no personal blogging, cutting down blog reading to a minimum, minimizing non-essential e-mail correspondence, and abstaining from commenting.
You may have noticed that, over the last year or so, this blog has mostly consisted of links to pieces that I have written elsewhere, punctuated by Open Mic Threads, so it probably won’t make much of a difference to the way things run here. I will still post links to articles I have written (expect several of these) and will still post Open Mic Thread posts (although I won’t participate in them).
I would value your prayers for the next few months: please pray that it will be a productive, enjoyable, and refreshing time.
See you all in 2016!
I’ve posted over on the Political Theology Today blog again, this time on Jesus’ teaching on ‘servant leadership’.
There are many prominent examples of theological code-switching in the New Testament, whereby terms and phrases with familiar weight and significance in a given frame of reference are given new meanings, invested with different values, or radically re-contextualized. Values and terms such as strength and weakness, master and servant, freedman and slave, rich and poor, or exaltation and humiliation are frequently code-switched in the most surprising ways within the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Within Mark 10 we encounter one of the most significant examples of this, as Jesus contrasts the pattern of rule that holds among the Gentile nations to that which must be among his disciples, declaring that any who would be first or greatest among them must be the servants of all.
Such examples of code-switching need to be approached and handled with considerably more care and attention than they commonly receive. There are various dangers that surface at such points. Perhaps the greatest of these is the temptation to resort to a sort of code-switching that leaves underlying injustices and inequities unaddressed and often even discourages action. An impotent yet palliating transvaluation that neither effects nor entails transformation can take the place of meaningful change. The poor, we may be told, for instance, are rich in Christ, yet such fine-sounding affirmations are seldom embodied either in behaviour that treats the poor as enjoying any spiritual advantage nor in the concern for their material needs that should accompany such recognition. Misuse of code-switching can dull us to injustice, substituting for, rather than spurring on, concerted efforts towards overcoming it. Ultimately, however, the world is not saved by redescription, but by resurrection.
Read the whole piece here.
The open mic thread is where you have the floor and can raise or discuss issues of your choice. There is no such thing as off-topic here. The comments of this thread are free for you to:
Over to you!
Earlier open mic threads:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,27, 28,29,30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38.
If you listened through the last Mere Fidelity episode, you will know that we are about to record our FIFTIETH episode. We plan to devote much of the episode to answering questions asked by our listeners. If you have a burning question that you would like us to answer, please leave it in the comments!
For this week’s Mere Fidelity episode, Matt Lee Anderson, Andrew Wilson, and I are joined by our friend Karen Swallow Prior (the author of the recent biography of Hannah More, Fierce Convictions). We discuss the recent evangelical statement on the welfare of animals by the Every Living Thing Campaign. Within the episode, I also make mention of this article on cat videos.
Take a listen and leave any thoughts in the comments!
You can also follow the podcast on iTunes, or using this RSS feed.
In this week’s Mere Fidelity episode Matt, Derek, and I are joined by special guest, Ryan Anderson. We discuss Anderson’s new book, Truth Overruled, the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, religious freedom, and issues of Christian faithfulness and prudence in a society that has instituted same-sex marriage.
Take a listen and leave any thoughts in the comments!
You can also follow the podcast on iTunes, or using this RSS feed.
The open mic thread is where you have the floor and can raise or discuss issues of your choice. There is no such thing as off-topic here. The comments of this thread are free for you to:
Over to you!
Earlier open mic threads:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,27, 28,29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37.
On the latest Mere Fidelity podcast Matt Lee Anderson, Derek Rishmawy, Andrew Wilson and I discuss the current refugee crisis facing Europe. I recently wrote a piece on the subject for Reformation21. My article provoked a lot of conversation, being discussed at length in the comments of my post and in posts written in response by Matthew Hosier and Phil Whittall (to which I wrote a very extensive response in the comments).
Take a listen and leave any thoughts in the comments!
You can also follow the podcast on iTunes, or using this RSS feed.
In our latest Mere Fidelity podcast, I join Derek Rishmawy and Andrew Wilson to discuss the huge question of Christocentric hermeneutics.
Among other things in the podcast, we discuss the meaning of the scarlet cord in the story of Rahab in Joshua 2. Peter Leithart has a helpful piece on that story here. I also comment on it here (see the rest of my 40 Days of Exoduses posts for similar readings). I argue that Rahab and other such figures are not just intertextually related, but are types that point towards the new Eve, who outwits the tyrant/serpent and whose seed crushes his head.
Take a listen and leave any thoughts in the comments!
You can also follow the podcast on iTunes, or using this RSS feed.
n. pl.
A miscellaneous collection of notes, remarks, or selections.
Alastair's Adversaria 