Carl Trueman's Posts

Carl Trueman's Posts

Cross or Glory?

Carl Trueman
Feb 2, 2015
In a seminar last week on Martin Luther, I commented that a theologian of glory could easily use the theology of cross for his own ends. He would thereby utterly subvert its purpose while still using its form. This provoked some discussion and even some resistance from my students but the point is...

Meth and Death

Carl Trueman
Jan 30, 2015
Our Man in Ulster has just brought this 2014 news story to my attention, about a woman charged with assault for taking meth while pregnant. Setting aside the obvious legal issue about the personhood of a baby in the womb in a nation where abortion is allowed by law, the prize for most astounding...

The Silence of the Gods

Carl Trueman
Jan 30, 2015
Another evangelical megachurch congregation has come out in favour of same sex marriage. This time it is GracePointe Church in Nashville, TN. The evangelical collapse is coming. A set of circumstances is conspiring to make it so. The external pressure is easy to identify: the sentiment, the...

Ragnarok

Carl Trueman
Jan 29, 2015
One aspect of Thomas Oden’s life which is both admirable and perplexing is his denominational loyalty. Oden is a United Methodist and it is clear from his autobiography that he is committed to his church and perhaps even optimistic that she might be rescued from all the liberal nonsense with...

A Guest Review: McKnight on Oden

Carl Trueman
Jan 28, 2015
As readers will know, this week MoS is focusing on Thomas Oden's autobiography, A Change of Heart . As I have reviewed it for the January edition of First Things , I asked Scot McKnight, as a friend and representative of another stream of evangelical life, to offer his thoughts on the volume,...

Valhalla Writing

Carl Trueman
Jan 27, 2015
One of the striking features of Thomas Oden’s spiritual life is his expansive intellectual appetite, evidenced in both his reading and his writing. From his early liberal passion for radical theological and political literature to his later development of the notion of paleo-orthodoxy, Oden...

Valhalla Rising

Carl Trueman
Jan 26, 2015
This week, the blog and podcast is going to focus on Thomas Oden, specifically his delightful memoir, A Change of Heart . Now, one of the key contributions of Thomas Oden to evangelical life was his involvement in 'Evangelicals and Catholics Together.' I will be reflecting on this over at...

Reports of the Collapse Have Perhaps Been Exaggerated -- But Only Temporarily

Carl Trueman
Jan 22, 2015
The other evening over dinner, a young Roman Catholic friend asked me if I thought evangelicalism would hold firm on gay marriage. I told him I thought a major collapse in the consensus was imminent and also speculated that he would see a similar thing occurring among un-catechized Roman Catholics...

The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether

Carl Trueman
Jan 21, 2015
Todd brought this little gem to my attention yesterday: Mount Holyoke College has apparently canceled a performance of that pinnacle of Western literary achievement, 'The Vagina Monologues,' because it might be offensive to transgender women who do not have the relevant anatomical part. Of...

The last act is bloody. Always bloody.

Carl Trueman
Jan 20, 2015
Last week’s Malarkey business was sad. Though the lad involved clearly did wrong, it did not seem to me that he had been motivated by greed, simply by a desire for attention. That does not sanctify the sin but it certainly puts it in perspective relative to other, more high-profile cases of...