Divinity United

Karina Hogan has reviewed Jonathan Moo's Creation, Nature and Hope in 4 Ezra (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011) in RBL . She gives a positive review of Moo's look at 4 Ezra's  portrayal of the created order, while also criticizing what she sees as hair-splitting on some occasions. Regardless, Moo's work is worth reading for those interested in Jewish apocalyptic and Jewish understandings of nature and creation at the end of the first-century.

Thomas Oden has a piece in the April 2012 edition of First Things entitled "Do Not Rashly Tear Asunder: Why the Beleaguered Faithful should stay and reform their churches" (pp. 40-44). He is writing about the specific situation of the United Methodist Church on the issue of ordaining those in same-sex unions. The essay is an argument to those of his fellow members in the Confessing Movement Within the United Methodist Church to remain within the UMC rather than separate. John Wesley serves as an example, since Wesley never left the Church of England and preached a sermon in 1784 entitled "Against Schism". Oden offers a number of poignant quotes from that sermon: "Do not rashly tear asunder the sacred ties which unite you to any Christian society." Oden states: "Wesley admonished those who hastily assumed that separation is a moral virtue: 'They leave a Christian society with as much unconcern as they go out of one room into another. They...w...

The cover story of Christianity Today's  March 2012 is an article by Perry L. Glanzer entitled: "The Missing Factor in Higher Education: How Christian Universities are Unique, and How They Can Stay That Way."  Glanzer makes an excellent case for the Christian university and it is a reminder for those of us working in Christian higher education about what makes us different and why what we do is valuable. Glanzer argues that teaching morals, wisdom, and character development are often what is missing at secular or research universities. The focus in larger, research universities is on the transfer of knowledge or the content of subjects. The smaller, Christian liberal arts universities have placed emphasis on the pursuit of truth and wisdom, along with the development of the entire individual rather than on purely emphasizing expertise in a specific subject area He warns that Christian universities could lose this strength by focusing on expertise versus on pursuing w...