Resident Theologian
About the Blog
How many American churches are screen-free?
A brief little wondering out-loud about church buildings and their sanctuaries in America.
My (two) latest: on communion wine and a new epistolary novel, in CT
Links to my two latest articles.
The solas don’t imply each other
Thoughts on the traditional solas of the Protestant Reformation.
My latest: a review of Ryan Burge, in The Lamp
A link to my review of Ryan Burge’s new book in the latest issue of The Lamp.
My latest: the fate of American Protestantism, in Public Discourse
A link to my latest essay in The Public Discourse.
My latest: Goldilocks Protestantism, in FT
A link to my essay in the latest issue of First Things.
The Eucharist: ceremony, doctrine, and the real presence
Further reflections on the Eucharist and its celebration across different Christian traditions.
My latest: an essay and response in Restoration Quarterly
An overview of the latest issue of Restoration Quarterly, which is organized around and in response to an essay of mine on the past, present, and future of churches of Christ.
Links: three reviews, three podcasts
Links to recent podcasts I joined as a guest and new reviews of one of my books.
Where can I find Jesus? Where can I receive the Eucharist?
A reflection in response to Jeff Reimer's essay on wayfaring through the ecclesial wilderness in search of the one true church.
Catholic Jedi, Protestant Wizards
A half-baked theory about the spiritual and aesthetic visions of George Lucas and J. K. Rowling.
Biblicism can’t get you where you want to go
A friendly debate with Matthew Lee Anderson about sexual ethics, biblicism, and magisterial authority.
Conversions, Protestantism, and a new mainline
Reflections on the appeal of Catholicism rather than Protestantism to public intellectuals as well as the possibility of a new conservative Protestant mainline in America.
East/West Christianity: an unfinished love story
A potted history of Eastern and Western Christianity, narrated (by my brother) as a love story.
CoC: past, present, future
My two posts on churches of Christ—the first on CoC-past as not-evangelical-but-catholic, the second on CoC-future as no-longer-catholic-but-evangelical—were intended to be merely descriptive, but I think their overall effect was something of a downer. This third and final post is meant to clarify what I’ve written and reflect constructively on the future.
CoC: catholic, not evangelical
For the whole of my academic career, it has been difficult to explain to friends and colleagues who have no prior knowledge of the Stone-Campbell Movement why churches of Christ are not best understood as “evangelical,” that is to say, as part of that rambunctious and dysfunctional family called “American evangelicalism.”
Reunion
Reading theology from the previous century has the power to trick you into thinking that reunion between the divided communions was, and remains, a live possibility. As late as 1999, when Robert Jenson published the second volume of his systematic theology, the bulk of which is a fulsome ecclesiology in close conversation with both Vatican II and the most recent ecumenical dialogues, you would be forgiven for getting the impression that reunion—between Rome and Wittenburg, between Rome and Canterbury, even between Rome and Constantinople—was conceivable within our lifetime, even right over the horizon.
The bishop of Rome in Alpha Centauri
I finally read Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, a novel with my name written on it if ever there was one. It’s more than six decades old—having been written in the wake of World War II; its origins there, as well as the fate of its author, are shadowed with tragedy—so I’m not worried about spoiling it for you, but be it known that the following quote comes from the final 50 pages of the book.