Author Archives: Chaplainmike

My Debt to Reformed Theology

By Chaplain Mike For the past twenty years, I have lived in America’s heartland, in the region where the Second Great Awakening occurred. It’s almost all revivalism all the time around here. Churches that predominate are Methodist, Baptist, Wesleyan, Nazarene, Church of God, Campbellite Christian, and so on. If churches in our area are notContinue reading “My Debt to Reformed Theology”

The New Calvinism

The third week of our conversations about “Three Streams of Post-Evangelicalism” will focus on a movement that has received attention from the secular media as well as from within the church. It has been deemed the “New Calvinism”. We are responding to Scot McKnight’s recent article in which he identified three alternative paths replacing theContinue reading “The New Calvinism”

Table Talk: Grace, Humility, and Hospitality

By Chaplain Mike Today’s Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14. In this Sunday’s text, we find Jesus at a familiar place in the Gospel of Luke—at a table, talking to people who struggle to grasp grace and its implications. Humility (14:7-11) In Jesus’ day, the seating arrangement at feasts was in a “U” shape, with the hostContinue reading “Table Talk: Grace, Humility, and Hospitality”

iMonk Classic: The Post-Evangelical Bookshelf—A Beginner’s Reading List For Finding Your Way In The Evangelical Wilderness

Classic iMonk Post by Michael Spencer Originally posted July 30, 2008 I’ve been doing an interview on “Post-Evangelicalism,” and I thought it would be a good time to list some of the books that define post-evangelicalism for me. First of all, a brief definition: Post-evangelicalism is a way of relating to the present seriously compromised,Continue reading “iMonk Classic: The Post-Evangelical Bookshelf—A Beginner’s Reading List For Finding Your Way In The Evangelical Wilderness”

N.T. Wright on the Hunger for Worship

By Chaplain Mike Of all matters that draw people to the Ancient-Future path, worship is at the top of the list. As N.T. Wright explains in the following video clip, people all around the world are starving to meet with God in worship. Wright draws from his own experiences of spiritual formation, his experience asContinue reading “N.T. Wright on the Hunger for Worship”

Don’t Misunderstand the Ancient-Future Path

By Chaplain Mike It’s probably clear to many of you by now that I have a great deal of sympathy for the Ancient-Future path as a hopeful way of revitalizing evangelicalism in this post-evangelical era. But I’m afraid people may have the wrong conception of what I’m talking about when I refer to the Ancient-FutureContinue reading “Don’t Misunderstand the Ancient-Future Path”

The Small god of Modern Evangelicalism

Today’s post is by guest blogger Daniel Jepsen. Yes, the non-capitilzation of the third word in the title is deliberate. I don’t think the god I am talked about deserves to be capitalized. For I am not talking about the God of the scriptures, but the god that is worshipped in much of modern AmericanContinue reading “The Small god of Modern Evangelicalism”

iMonk Classic: Review of “Evangelicals and Tradition”

Classic iMonk Post by Michael Spencer Originally posted June 26, 2007 My list of must-read books for post-evangelicals is short. Newly added at the top of the list: Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church’s Future) by Baylor University professor of patristics and Baptist ministerContinue reading “iMonk Classic: Review of “Evangelicals and Tradition””