Renew Your Mind … And the Rest Will Follow!
Renewal is not easy to define. It is neither the “old” nor the “new” but the process of change that takes us from one to the other. Sometimes we understand what is “old” only when we are confronted...
View ArticleApocalyptic Movies, the End and Christian Humanism
Marcus: What is it that makes us human? It’s not something that you can program. You can’t put it into a chip. It’s the strength of the human heart. The difference between us and the machines...
View ArticlePaul and his Kingdom Problem – Part 1
The apostle Paul is well known for many of his theological insights, such as his theology of justification, salvation, sanctification, glorification and all of the other Pauline words that, in English,...
View ArticlePhysician, Heal Thyself!
It’s interesting what standing in front of people can do to you week-by-week when you have regular preaching responsibilities. If you don’t watch out, the Bible can become nothing more than a text for...
View ArticleDeeper, Higher, More: A Search for Pragmatic Implications of the Gifts of the...
“What is this that makes me feel so good right now? What is this that makes folks say I am acting strange? Whatever it is, it won’t let me hold my peace.” -Unknown Songwriter from the African American...
View ArticleEducation and Renewal
Here at Regent University School of Divinity we study renewal and attempt to unpack its “dynamics.” As I continue to study the history of Christianity, I have noticed that the internal renewal of the...
View ArticleFalse advertisement: How NOT to Wear the Label “Christian”
I work at a “Christian” university. It is difficult to avoid that label; difficult to fail to understand what is intended by that label, since the mission and vision of our university are clearly...
View ArticleTheology in the Rearview Mirror–Let go of the parking brake!
Don’t say theology is hip. Or cool. Or whatever you call it. You know: belonging to the stuff that is hotly debated; fast on the tracks of the latest developments; culturally and politically informed....
View ArticleFurther Reflections on “Approaching” Hell
Last week I wrote against what I identified as the Ida Syndrome (the Ice Dancing Approach to scripture). With its attempt to glide across the expanse of scriptural texts, I described this approach as a...
View ArticleGlobal Renewal, Religious Pluralism, and the Great Commission
Global Renewal, Religious Pluralism, and the Great Commission : Towards a Renewal Theology of Mission and Interreligious Encounter. Asbury Theological Seminary Series in Christian Revitalization...
View ArticleConference on the Holy Spirit or Holy Spirit Conference? Why Not Both?
This past weekend here at Regent University, our Center for Renewal Studies hosted a conference on “The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life.” Like many academic conferences, there were plenty of paper...
View ArticleEaster and the Renewal of the Spirit
Some say that the renewing work of the Spirit presumes a lukewarmness of sorts or a state of spiritual formalism (one lacking in vitality); only such a condition presumes or requires renewal. Others...
View ArticleRegent, Renewal, and Transdenominationalism
George Marsden suggests that a characteristic of evangelicalism is its transdenominational nature. What he means is that evangelicals seem at home in parachurch ministries and organizations that...
View ArticleEvangelicalism — and the Renewal of Christianity
The question of What is Evangelicalism? rages on. For me, David Bebbington’s by now classic “quadrilateral” definition – in which the defining features of Evangelicalism include its biblicism,...
View ArticleGlobal Renewal: A View from (Western) Canadian America
This past week I have been spending time – courtesy of my friend and current second vice-president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Michael Wilkinson – on the campus of Trinity Western...
View ArticleRenewal and Disability: Turning the World Upside Down!
It was at Thessalonica when Paul and his friends were first referred to as “These people who have been turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). I have just spent the last week in an intensive and...
View ArticleChristian Witness in a Pluralistic World: Renewing Christian Faith
There is no doubt that Christian faith is exclusively in Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, NRSV),...
View ArticleThe International Church of the Foursquare Gospel & Global Renewal
During the last weekend of June, through the invitation of A. J. Swoboda, author of the forthcoming Tongues & Trees: Toward a Pentecostal Ecology Theology in the JPT Supplement Series (announced...
View ArticleRenewal and Cancer: Together with God
In December 2010, Larisa Ard Jenkins, wife of Skip Jenkins and mother of four, was diagnosed with a rare, untreatable cancer (neuroendocrine). Surgery removed her kidney, and the doctors reported it...
View ArticleFrom Azotus to Auckland: Renewal at the Bottom of the Earth?
As Philip found himself transported suddenly from the Gaza road to Azotus (Acts 8:40), so also I went to sleep on an airplane out of LAX & awoke in Auckland last weekend. I was here for the...
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