The Day the Music Died

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“As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”[1] A chilling quote from the letter sent from the Justice Department to all the school districts in the United States. It is the letter that represents a monumental day in my mind: the day the music died. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, “The Obama administration [has issued] a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender … [Read more]

Trinitarian Doctrinal Statement

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The following is a doctrinal statement I did for my ST 102 class: Trinitarianism. The prompt was as follows: “All students will write a doctrinal statement and ministry application paper. This assignment includes two parts. The first section is a descriptive definition of God, which should not exceed one page in length (single-spaced, normal font and margins) with biblical and theological references arranged as endnotes (no length specified here). The definition should state your beliefs about God. The explanation and defense of those beliefs should be in the endnotes, to avoid distracting from the flow of the definition. The second … [Read more]

The Maccabean War and First Century Judea

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This is a paper written for my New Testament introduction class. The prompt was to discuss the effects of the Maccabean war on first century Judaism. Enjoy! Introduction When attempting to determine how to navigate exploring the question of the effect of the Maccabean war on first century Judaism, I found myself in a sea of information. Where to begin? How does one go about looking at the effects of a war, without first looking at the war? How does one look at the war, without looking at the historical context which led to the war? These seem to be … [Read more]

The Dreaded “A-Word”

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It was asked of me recently, “Is the purpose of your blog to start arguments or conversations?” I said arguments. Let me explain why. What Arguments Actually Are I think arguments have a bad rap nowadays, and it’s because the word has been misused to mean “nasty screaming matches that are completely illogical where no coherent point is being made.” That’s not an argument. That’s a fight. An argument can, however, have a range of legitimate definitions. Here are two of them: An argument is a series of statements intended to build a case and make a point about reality. … [Read more]

Super Heroes Do What the Church Won’t

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Superhero movies are doing what the church won’t: teach theology. I really wish the general public got better theology than what’s taught in superhero movies. This is a thought I’ve had for a while, pretty much since The Dark Knight came out, but it hadn’t been blatant enough for the public until Batman vs. Superman. I saw the movie last night and my friend Sam Bennet, who we ran into at the theater, warned me, “You’re going to want to write a blog post about it.” He was right. Batman v Superman was the first one to make it unmistakable … [Read more]