Author: Jonathan Dodson

Paste: Best of 2008

Posted on November 28, 2008

Paste’s recent issue lists the Best of 2008 in films, music, and books. Like all “Best of” lists, they are conditioned by the reviewers, but PASTE nailed some albums for sure. Some of their tops in music include:

While you are looking for Xmas gifts, consider giving a subscription to Paste for any of your friends who are into thoughtful reflection on current film and music. I am still marveling at the issue on Violence.

Post-Christendom Spiritualities

Posted on November 26, 2008

Earlier this year Trinity Graduate School hosted a conference co-sponsored by the Lausanne Movement on Post-Christendom Spiritualities. During the consultation participants heard from, among others, Dr. Gordon Melton (Institute for the Study of American Religion) on changes in the “New Age” or New Spiritualities; Dr. James Beverley (Tyndale Seminary) on the emerging church movement; Dr. Ross Clifford (Morling College) on the significance of the new religions in popular culture and the importance of combining a pastoral approach with a subjective evidential apologetic for post-Christendom spiritualities; and Dr. Gerald McDermott (Roanoke College) who discussed the church’s earliest theologians and apologists and how they responded to the religious movements of their culture in the first centuries of the Christian era.

McDermott’s essay in No Other Gods Before Me? made quite an impact on my theology of religions, tying insights from Jonathan Edwards to the revelation of God in other religions. Although I don’t agree with McDermott on everything, if the rest of the other speakers were anywhere close to his forward thinking, this will be some audio to get.