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These days, there are generally two camps for you to pick from if you work in ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). Plenty of people try to pick and choose pieces from each, but I tend to think that never works out too well. When it comes down to it, either you roll with the “practices” crowd , or you’re down with the “mission” folks (here is another angle ; cf. also this KBBC piece ; there are also plenty of people who use the language of “mission” but are actually doing a variation of “practices,” so be wary; in any case, this is in many ways a variation on the Reformation argument between Protestants and Roman Catholics as to whether word or sacrament priority). Migliore learned well from Barth (and, undoubtedly, others) the importance of the church’s missionary task in bearing witness to Jesus Christ. Sidebar: I won’t get into the thick dogmatic background to all this, but if you want to get into it for yourself, the best book is John Flett’s The Witness of God . There are a nu...

It is my custom here at DET to take a moment to commemorate the passage of another theo-blogging year. Today marks six years of DET. Drifting back over those six years in my mind feels like a very, very long time. So many things have happened. On the personal side: 2 apartments, one rental house, first-time homeownership, three cars, a cross-country move, and to top it all off in every sense, two little boys. On the professional side: two graduate degrees – going from being a bachelor to a doctor with incredible amounts of reading and writing in between. On the blog side: four Barth Blog Conferences , lots of serials , a bunch of other miscellaneous reading guides and such , and – all told – closing in on 700 posts. But all this is now in the past. What of the future? I can honestly say that I have come close to shutting DET down in periods of low blog activity (i.e., high offline activity). But I have never done it because I always saw some kind of a future here. That hasn’t changed...

We are in the thick of this summer’s dog days here in St. Charles, MO. The heat just keeps on coming, and the rain keeps on staying away. I busy myself inside my office with a number of projects, working frantically to clear my desk of the major work prior to the start of Fall classes. And somewhere in there I need to prepare material for some of those classes… Oh well. I thought that I might tide you over, gentle reader, with some pictures. You may recall my previous post in this vein, which showcased my then office. I am happy to say that I am now installed in a better appointed office next door to that one, and I’m sure a picture post for that will be forthcoming. This is not it, however. Instead, allow me to show you around my corner of Lindenwood University’s campus . These pictures are from back in February, I believe, hence the trace (only a trace, mind you…) of snow. I begin with a picture of Roemer Hall, which does double duty as the location of the primary administrative...

…or, Something to keep you busy over the weekend… …or, The Past Fortnight in the Theoblogosphere. Time for another one of these things. To begin, we’ve had some good stuff here lately from the DET contributor corps. Perhaps the most substantial in terms of “weight” (whatever that means, but you get the idea) was Brandy Daniels’s contribution to the reader’s guide series : So, You Want to Read . . . Dietrich Bonhoeffer? This post brought in lots of traffic so if you haven’t seen it yet, go find out what you’re missing. Next is Matt Warren’s Theologians Almanac post for July 14. Finally, we noted that Scott Rice had a book review published. So, well done you three! Moving on. To begin, here is a sermon on Mark 4:26-34 from good friend of the blog Jason Ingalls: God Grows the Kingdom . Collin Cornell admonishes his readers to undertake a close reading of the Old Testament, and presents some fruits of his own reading. Friend of the blog and KBBC contributor Scott Jackson has...

DET contributor Scott Rice reviews John P. Lewis, Karl Barth in North America: The Influence of Karl Barth in the Making of a New North American Evangelicalism (Resource Publications, 2009) . Scott’s review is a solid summary of the volume, so read it to get a quick skinny on how Barth was received by North American evangelical theologians. His review made me want to read the book! So be sure to check out Scott’s review ! ================================== Follow @WTravisMcMaken

I have been re-reading Cottret in preparation for teaching a course on the Reformation that will focus on Calvin. Indeed, Cottret’s volume is the July 2012 DET Book ‘O the Month . Anyway, it is high time that I shared some more of this excellent volume with you, gentle readers. It seems that every Calvin scholar at some point has to get down to business and set up a comparison between Luther and Calvin. This often reveals quite a lot about the scholar’s own interests and orientation. I am very much looking forward to writing an entertaining instance of my own one day… In any case, Cottret’s comparison focuses on matters of personality, style, and national identity. Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (M. Wallace McDonald, trans.; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 39. Calvin belonged to the second generation of the Reformation. When he was born in 1509, Luther was about twenty-five. Jean Cauvin was just emerging from childhood in 1517 when the Augus...

Birthdays John Calvin Before moving on to today's cast, we should note that this past Tuesday, July 10th, marked John Calvin's 503rd birthday. Do make your way over to Travis's post on July's Book 'O the Month , which is Bernard Cottret’s Calvin: A Biography (also featured at the top of the left sidebar). Cardinal Jules Mazarin Born this day in 1602, Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino would go on to succeed Cardinal Richelieu as the chief minister of France, and aid Anne of Austria during her regency until Louis XIV came of age to rule France. Throughout his term in office, Mazarin was unwilling to restore the protections the Huguenots had received under the Edict of Nantes. Mazarin died March 9, 1661. Pasquier Quesnel It's the birthday of Pasquier Quesnel, who was born in 1634 in Paris. After graduating from the Sorbonne, he joined the French Oratory, where he cultivated Jansenist sympathies. For this he was banished from Paris in 1681. As a Jansenist theolog...

John Flett reviews Michael Beintker, Christian Link, and Michael Trowitzsch (eds.), Karl Barth im europäischen Zeitgeschehen (1935–1950), Widerstand – Bewährung – Orientierung. Beiträge zum Internationalen Symposion vom 1. bis 4. Mai 2008 in der Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek Emden (TVZ, 2010) . Read this review to get a peek into the world of European Barth scholarship! Check out the review ! Also, while you’re clicking around the interwebs, go buy Flett’s book as well ! ================================== Follow @WTravisMcMaken

"I fear that Christians who stand with only one leg upon earth also stand with only one leg in heaven." "The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community…may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door." "Since ethical thinking in terms of realms is overcome by faith in the revelation of the ultimate reality in Jesus Christ . . . there is no real Christian existence outside the reality of the world." "People who reject their bodies reject their existence before God the Creator." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer Prelude Andreas Steinhoff [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons I envisioned having a lot of time for blogging this summer, but that simply has not been the case - the last month has been a crazy one, to say the least. For two weeks, I was working at a theology summer camp of sorts, the Duke Youth Academy, and s...

…or, Something to keep you busy over the weekend… …or, The Past Fortnight in the Theoblogosphere. July begins to slip past more quickly than I should like and I keep hoping that I’ll wake up with the extraordinary power to freeze the world around me while I go about my work for a few months – then, perhaps, I would actually get some things done! But, alas, such powers have not (yet) been granted to me. In the meantime, here are some links to good reading so that you can stay as busy as I am… To begin, here is a nice official press release from PTS about the recent Barth conference. It comes complete with a picture of many of the speakers. The folks over at the blog run by a number of Wheaton PhD students provides a list of links to where you can currently purchase a number of texts by and about Barth at deep discount. Hurry over and fill out your library a bit before the deals end! Many folks who take a, let us say, less hermeneutical approach to the biblical text also venera...

Frequent and attentive readers may have noticed that DET has offered a new feature for the last couple of weeks – namely, a “Book ‘O the Month” recommendation found at the top of the left sidebar. This feature compliments the DET Recommended Reading page accessible from the top bar. The idea is to feature one text each month that DET’s contributors find particularly helpful, interesting, etc., including a short statement from the recommender as to why that text is so. For the past few weeks I’ve had Keith Johnson’s book, Karl Barth and the Analogia Entis (now in a more affordable paperback edition!) featured there, a text that I have posted about before (here is one example ). July’s DET Book ‘O the Month is Bernard Cottret’s Calvin: A Biography . This text has long been my go-to source for Calvin biography, and I have been re-reading it recently in preparation for teaching Calvin in the Fall semester. While doing so I have been continually struck by the mastery of Cottret’s writin...

Well, half of 2012 is over. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done a ton so far this year but nowhere near as much as I need to. Here’s hoping for a very productive second half of the summer… In the meantime, I thought it might be worthwhile to highlight the top ten posts so far this year in terms of traffic. In other words, what are you – gentle readers – reading? To begin, I’m not going to include the structural aspects of the site in this. For instance, in terms of raw visits, the blog’s front page blows everything else out of the water. The contributors page ranks right behind that, and the about page is in the top five. Also ranking rather high are things like the recommended reading page, the Karl Barth Blog Conference index page , and that post from way back in January announcing the new collaborative format and the change in blog name from Der Evangelische Theologe to Die Evangelischen Theologen . So, setting those aside, what are the top 10 content / material posts so ...