New Video and News of the Week
This was a fun week with lectures on Romans 4 and a sermon on Amos 4. I also delivered to InterVarsity Press (UK) the manuscript for my book provisionally titled: The Whisper of Revolution: Jesus and the Coming of God as King. Now available is my lecture Against Totalitarianism delivered at the Canadian Baptist College & Seminary. You can listen to my sermon on Amos 3. I was proud to see one of my doctoral students, Amber Dillon, get awarded her doctorate to become Dr. Dillon. Also, Logos is selling New Testament in its World Video Lectures for $18.00!
New Video
In this video, I explain how the church grew from a Jewish renewal movement to a Gentile-majority religion. The answer is … Jewish restoration eschatology.
News of the Week
A lot of news!
Intersex Athletes and Boxing. There is a lot of misinformation about boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting in the Paris Olympics. First, against the right, they are not men who identify as women. They are females with a Development Sex Disorder (DSD) which gives them male attributes and thus male advantage. Against the left, this is not a Russian conspiracy theory, there are legitimate questions about female athletes with a DSD competing in a contact sport.
Planned Parenthood is in the Gender Transition Business. I did not expect this, but I am not surprised. Planned Parenthood is in the gender transition business and, much like clinics in the UK, doing a lot of dodgy stuff that is driven by either ideology or finance to the detriment of adolescent females.
Do I hear a Walz? That’s a pun on a Richard Rodgers musical. I still think Josh Shapiro was passed over partly because his brazen Jewishness would offend the progressive left. That said, Tim Walz has some good qualities, he seems fundamentally decent, and likable. But, is Tim Walz the working-class grandpa with a social conscience or a boomer progressive with extreme views on abortion and soft on law and order?
Riots in the UK are Happening and its Bad. Rioters targeting foreigners, refugees, immigration lawyers, and mosques is very, very bad. The rioting is xenophobic in the extreme, yet this is the backlash caused by an uncontrolled immigration policy that pauperizes the working poor by making housing, jobs, and medical services even scarcer.
Meg Basham’s Shepherds for Sale gets some epic critiques. Apparently this book has a lot of factual errors in it. Also, if some evangelicals are cosy with the left for the money, I think the same can be said that some evangelicals are cosy with MAGA for the money too. That door swings both ways. I must confess that I’ve enjoyed watching the evangelical right go to war with the evangelical far-right over Basham’s book.
Bible Colleges in the UK are in Trouble. An alarming article about the over-supply of colleges, the under-supply of students, and problems finding an accrediting university body. All is not well for the UK seminary education sector. As a deputy principal of a college, I can commiserate.
Audio commentary below!