This Week in Word from the Bird

Posts for 18-22 April

Monday: When Did Jesus Become God? (Free Sign-Ups)
New Book! When Did Jesus Become God? is a debate between Bart Ehrman and Michael Bird, with a helpful historiographic introduction by Robert Stewart that helps readers understand the debate about the divinity of Jesus.

Tuesday: Hillsong and Hyperpriests (Free Sign-Ups)
Dr. Leah Payne points out that American religious culture - and I would add other places too - are still fit for celebrity Christian leaders to thrive because the platforms exist to create them.

Wednesday: Philippians 3 - Translation and Paraphrase (Subscribers).
"I even consider all things to be a loss because of the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of the Anointed Iēsous my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them refuse, in order that I may gain the Anointed One and may be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the Torah, but a righteousness which is through the faithfulness of the Anointed One.”

Thursday: I’m a Christian Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here (Subscribers).
In my own head, I’m a celebrity, so how do I get outta here? How do I think and act like Christ’s servant and not like a guy who is destined to end up on Preachers in Sneakers?

Friday: Losing Our Religion: The Religious Decline of the West? (Subscribers)
I have been reading Ronald F. Inglehart’s book Religion’s Sudden Decline: What’s Causing it, and What Comes Next? (Oxford: OUP, 2021) and have a few thoughts.