by Theological Commission
Regular blog content from the Commission for Theological Integrity will return soon. In the meantime, the Commission reminds readers of the annual Symposium to be held on the campus of Welch College in Gallatin, Tennessee. Sessions will begin on the evening of October 23, and last throughout the day on Tuesday, October 24.
Proposals, abstracts, and questions about presenting should be submitted prior to August 20.
The Commission for Theological Integrity will hold their annual Theological Integrity seminar on the topic of transgenderism. W. Jackson Watts, a member of the Commission and pastor of Grace Free Will Baptist Church in Arnold, Missouri, will be the presenter. The seminar will take place on Monday afternoon in the Kentucky Center’s Bomhard Theater from 2:00-3:30pm. Most Free Will Baptists have been increasingly aware of the influence of transgenderism. The Commission hopes to equip attendees to understand it as a phenomenon, and help them discover how to effectively minister to persons who identify as such or who are confused by the subject as a whole.
by W. Jackson Watts
Recently I read Tom Wolfe’s latest work, The Kingdom of Speech. Wolfe is well-known and controversial journalist who has authored fiction and non-fiction works on a range of subjects. In the aforementioned title, a sort of exploration into philosophy, science, linguistics, and history, Wolfe devotes significant attention to the story of Daniel L. Everett.
Everett was a missionary sent by the Summer Institute of Linguistics to the Pirahās (pronounced pee-da-HAN) Indians in the Amazonian jungle. I had heard of Everett before and discussed his story with a Brazilian friend, though I did not know the whole story. What I did know was so fascinating to me that I picked up a copy of his memoir, Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle (Pantheon Books, 2008).
Continue reading Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: A Reflection
by J. Matthew Pinson
Recently I listened to a podcast by Phillip Jensen, the evangelical Anglican pastor from Sydney, Australia. Despite the obvious doctrinal differences between Free Will Baptists and Reformed Anglicans, Jensen and the Matthias Media folks down in Sydney are interesting people to watch. They demonstrate what it means to have aggressive, growing, evangelistic churches in the highly urban, post-Christian setting of Sydney. Yet at the same time they show how to do this by relying on the sufficiency of Scripture and not giving in to gimmicks and depending on attractional, market-driven, or seeker-driven approaches to get churches to grow.
by W. Jackson Watts
It is common to modern American religious experience to consider the relationship between the Church and the Academy. Specifically, what is the proper relationship between local churches and Christian colleges, universities, and/or theological seminaries?
I’m often interested to see how people from the past have spoken of this relationship. Sometimes interesting insights come from unfamiliar quarters. Such is the case as I was recently perusing H. Richard Niebuhr’s The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry.