tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-331084412009-11-27T06:38:47.316-06:00The blog title is in flux. I'm open to suggestions.Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-13123879489781021052009-07-10T12:06:00.002-05:002009-07-10T12:08:38.753-05:00

I've started a new website and blog at http://peacefulministry.com. They're devoted to helping ministers and their ministries thrive. I hope you'll join the conversation. There are already three entries under "Posts!"

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-29275747957802772322009-06-20T22:04:00.003-05:002009-06-20T22:09:34.050-05:00

Over at Mode of Expression, Jeff Reimer recently posted What’s Wrong with Theology: A Short Case Study in which he describes his interaction with a recent edition of Augustine's sermons. It's worth the read.An excerpt:One of the maddening things about my “Christian spirituality” classes in grad school was the constant separation students fretted over between “head” and “heart.” This may have

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-16919921477742139092009-06-19T11:07:00.000-05:002009-06-19T11:07:02.645-05:00

Over at the Princeton Seminary Library page, a new book review from yours truly is up: Joe Mangina's Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness. Enjoy!

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-64839149285418092542009-06-16T09:40:00.002-05:002009-06-16T09:47:38.669-05:00

Last weekend, I was in New Jersey and preached at Montgomery Evangelical Free Church, the church where Monique and I attended and I worked during seminary. It has been my tradition to post the full text of my sermons along with the audio when it is available.The audio may be found here.Full text below:---"Jesus Sends Doubters"Matthew 28:16-20[Open with prayer] Please turn in your Bibles to

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-8514919640559939762009-02-28T10:19:00.003-06:002009-02-28T10:20:36.998-06:00

The Per Caritatem blog has just started a series called "Paul and Slavery: Submit, Subvert, or Something in Between?"  The first post is very engaging, and I'm looking forward to the rest.  I hope you'll check it out.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-20732312478447401012008-09-26T15:12:00.000-05:002008-09-26T15:13:02.967-05:00

This is from IvyJungle.org:Graduate Student Auctions Off Virginity:  In a new low for morals and capitalism, a 22 year old graduate student at Sacramento State has joined with a legal Nevada brothel to auction off her virginity.  The young woman says she can verify her purity and is selling her first experience to finance her graduate education in marriage and family therapy.  Holding an

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-27445051906430659472008-08-15T08:00:00.000-05:002008-08-15T08:00:01.399-05:00

Because of the recent work I've been doing with Matt Jenson's The Gravity of Sin, I've gotten some exposure at the T&T Clark blog here and here. Enjoy!

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-14779381025014000972008-08-11T08:00:00.000-05:002008-08-11T08:00:02.858-05:00

I've been reading N. T. Wright's Surprised by Hope. Here are a couple of fantastic paragraphs on the ascension (112-113).What happens when you downplay or ignore the ascension [or the resurrected and still embodied Jesus]? The answer is that the church expands to fill the vaccuum. If Jesus is more or less identical with the church - if, that is, talk about Jesus can be reduced to talk about

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-62285382446952633522008-08-08T08:00:00.000-05:002008-08-08T08:00:19.598-05:00

This is a lyric of a song we sing at St. Bartholomew's from time to time. The words were penned by Caroline Maria Noel in 1870, and the hymn tune we use was arranged by our music director Eric Wyse in 2005. In my humble opinion, there's not a more perfect expression of theology and piety than this song. The two verses in brackets are original, but we don't use in church, for length's sake, but

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-51593870730055704882008-08-06T08:00:00.001-05:002008-08-06T08:00:21.287-05:00

In other words, liberalism is, simply, the desire to be taken seriously by the academy and the willingness to find an apologetic that is relevant to the culture. Several days ago, a friend replied to my 'bad, bad windows' rant. You can see his response here. I replied, and the above sentence is part of the response. The more I think about this sentence, the more I think it is both desperately

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-57271906424067809622008-08-04T08:00:00.001-05:002008-08-04T08:00:01.234-05:00

I finished this little book while we were on vacation, and I'd say this. If you want to read more quickly than you already do, then buy this book. I've tried to read faster before, but there was something about this book was structured (one chapter a day for ten days) that sped the learning, and I highly recommend it.The most important thing I learned was that you have to expect a drop in

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-10820045516421367472008-08-02T09:30:00.001-05:002008-08-04T09:40:05.873-05:00

Before we left on our trip, I wrote a review of Matt Jenson's The Gravity of Sin for the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. The review is up now, so go see it and let me know what you think.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-3572216247759098822008-08-01T22:30:00.001-05:002008-08-02T17:42:21.675-05:00

As I've written, Monique and I just returned recently from a fantastic 10-day vacation to the Pacific Northwest. On the trip, we visited Victoria, British Columbia, and its beautiful Parliament building.Represented in stained glass around the place were the different branches of knowledge. One held the Arts, another Science, and yet another Agriculture. Being me, the one that caught my eye was

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-84380621316961878222008-08-01T22:24:00.003-05:002008-08-01T22:29:17.588-05:00

Monique and I are just back from a celebratory trip to the Pacific Northwest. We celebrated Monique's completed Ph.D. with ten days in Washington, Oregon, and Canada. What a great trip it was!Here are some of the things we saw:1. Mt. Rainier2. Mt. St. Helens3. The Columbia River Gorge4. Multnomah Falls5. Portland6. Washington's Pacific Coastline7. Olympic National Park8. The Hoh Rainforest9.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-27029915416893060362008-07-02T08:13:00.003-05:002008-07-02T08:16:30.835-05:00

Here is a link to two recent sermons I preached at Montgomery Evangelical Free Church in Belle Mead, NJ. The first is "Christ Conquered our Suffering," on Romans 5:1-11.The second is "God Gave Us Life," on Romans 6:1-11.Enjoy!

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-30544734131907020042008-05-28T06:54:00.002-05:002008-05-28T06:55:13.831-05:00

The very few reviews I have read try to treat Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as a stand-alone story and then complain about its lack of wonder, adventure, or originality. These really are problems with Skull, but I do not think they spring from the failure of Lucas and Spielberg to create a fresh action movie. They are, on the other hand, marks of success. Skull was nothing

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-40070609260976257472008-05-15T10:08:00.002-05:002008-05-15T10:21:27.145-05:00

[Disclaimer: You are about to read a polemic] I've been thinking some about missions lately, and the idea of 'context' has come up repeatedly. Some say we need to 'contextualize the Gospel' in order to make it understandable to others. The problem is that the context or culture of any one person, much less an entire group of people, is infinitely removed from yours. There is no such thing

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-72999477702529784842008-04-11T17:32:00.002-05:002008-04-11T17:35:02.293-05:00

As I prepare for this December's Following Christ conference, I keep spotting its theme of human flourishing in many and varied places. See if you can spot it here in some remarks by the Rt. Revd. N.T. Wright, who will be expositing Colossians at this year's conference.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-79028053657411828602008-04-04T11:13:00.001-05:002008-04-04T11:15:44.848-05:00

I'm trying to raise some money to buy an LCD projector for the Vanderbilt Graduate Christian Fellowship (and InterVarsity's use at Vanderbilt). We've recently had trouble checking out and borrowing a projector from the school. Would you mind chipping in?Get your ChipIn widget

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-61367945594740487992008-03-14T12:51:00.002-05:002008-03-14T12:54:14.302-05:00

This is a great parody. It highlights some of the great things and not-so-great things about how some homeschool families school their children.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-34318231888953265782008-03-10T13:55:00.002-05:002008-08-10T14:48:19.764-05:00

Index:Part IPart IIPart IIIPart IV (not yet published)I've been angling slowly towards making this point: the current use of the word "incarnational" to describe ministry or presence falls short of the Incarnation itself.One can use the word to describe ministry if we just start with the word itself, "incarnation," as enfleshment or embodiment. Again, in this connection there are (usually) three

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-39765580631410119062008-03-08T16:07:00.005-06:002008-08-10T14:48:35.550-05:00

Index:Part IPart IIPart IIIPart IV (not yet published)So far, I've described three layers of how I've seen the modifier "incarnational" used. The first use is "presence." The second use is "embodied presence." The third is either "kenotic presence" or "kenotic embodied presence." In the second and third use there is a mediation involved, usually of an idea or ideal and usually in an

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-26518545308330315662008-03-05T09:24:00.008-06:002008-08-10T14:46:37.158-05:00

I've heard a lot since college about this adjective, "incarnational." Well, actually, I haven't heard a lot about it. I've heard it used, repeatedly, to describe things like "ministry" or "presence." You might hear something like, "We strive to practice incarnational ministry here," or, "The Church needs to be more incarnational." As you can see from the title, I don't use this word any

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-43447001706693046322008-03-04T18:33:00.002-06:002008-03-04T18:43:14.540-06:00

Well, I've decided that if I'm going to use this blog site, then I'd better broaden it out a bit. Before, "Jason's GFM Blog" was just a way for me to post fun pictures and talk about stuff I do on Vanderbilt's campus with InterVarsity's Graduate and Faculty Ministries.Then Facebook came along. I don't post pictures much there, either, but it's much easier than here.Then, I just stopped posting.

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33108441.post-8400974521008969582008-02-27T11:44:00.003-06:002008-02-27T11:48:48.276-06:00

"It is Christian heroism--a rarity, to be sure--to venture wholly to become oneself, an individual human being, this specific individual human being, alone before God, alone in this prodigious strenuousness and this prodigious responsibility; but it is not Christian heroism to be taken in by the idea of man in the abstract or to play the wonder game with world history" (italics mine).-Soren

Jasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07398414371964792930jasoningalls@gmail.com0