Constructio ad Sensum (or, A Collection of Unrelated Items)

One of my professors last year recommended something which I will now unabashedly recommend to the reader: pick a few people whose writing you admire and whose thoughts you enjoy learning from, and read everything they write. He offered his example: Richard Bauckham, a man who for years has exemplified a critical-realistic approach to the historicity of the Gospels and the message of Jesus, and is a phenomenal scholar.  The practice of choosing (in this case, theological) author-mentors is beneficial for several reasons, many of which I do not have space to elucidate, and many others of which I am as yet unaware. But one that I would commend to you is this: as you read the same person in various settings and on various topics, you learn the pattern of thought of another human being and you begin to see the ways they process ideas, and you can learn a lot from this experience of intellectual empathy.  There are no hard and fast rules for choosing a mentor, but I will ...

The following is a paper I presented at the annual conference of Theological Fellowship at Covenant Seminary. It is a brief expedition into the historical and theological reasons for why popular theology differs so greatly from what we find in academic circles - most importantly, why many Christians feel little or no need to study theology.  Reviving Popular Theology: Re-Situating [1] Theology for the  Ekklesia INTRODUCTION —  Who is theology for? That is, who does theology? In an important sense the answer is everyone. [2] No one’s conception of the transcendent is completely blank — even the New Atheists have a conception of the divine (which they then reject). We are imbued with the capacity for imagination, and being creatures of God, our imaginations are primed for thoughts about God. But for many in the pews, the answer to this question is that theology is for the theologians, viz. the pastors and scholars and teachers of the church. The average churchgoer n...

The following is a reflection I wrote upon finishing Frances Fitzgerald's The Evangelicals: The subtitle of Frances Fitzgerald’s nearly 700-page work detailing the history of evangelicalism in America is telling: “the struggle to shape America”. First of note is that it is a  struggle . Especially in the latter half of the book, the effort to win the culture wars and effectively mold the United States in the image of fundamentalist Christianity is revealed to be a massive undertaking. It consumes the lives of dozens of people at the top of the ladder of influence, and countless others at the grassroots level. But a struggle does not necessarily imply victory; indeed, if anything our present cultural moment indicates that by-and-large this endeavor was not victorious. A glance to the primary issues of the culture wars reveals the extent to which the all-consuming life’s work of many evangelical leaders has been undermined or, in some cases, totally defeated.  Roe v. Wa...

For the third (fourth?) time, I'm starting a blog. Hopefully it'll stick; I think Latin might help. In all seriousness, this blog is my attempt to make good on a commitment I've made for 2019 and beyond: I would like to write (for fun, even!) more often. This might be an insane time for me to do this, given a busy semester of seminary and a baby boy on the way by the end of said semester, but writing is a skill I want to hone and regular writing deadlines do seem to encourage such honing. As for the content of this blog, I make no guarantees. I might write about a book I just read, it might be a reflection on some themes I've been picking up on in my life as a seminary student, or it might be some short words before linking to some more interesting post. In any case, I hope the writing that comes from this blog is enjoyable, thought-provoking, or otherwise worth the time you spend reading it. Grace and peace, Evan