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Book Reviews Featured

The Back Side of the Cross

A Book Review By Brandon Brown In their book, The Back Side of the Cross Drs. Diane Leclerc and Brent Peterson ask a question. This question is important and one which may just awaken the Church to listening to a people who have often been ignored, the sinned against. They

Featured

The Myth of the Soft Middle

By Brandon Brown The concept of the via media, or middle way within Christian doctrine, practice, and tradition has been getting buffeted by critics lately. Those critics attempt to claim that the via media is simply a balancing of two extremes, a refusal to take a stand, or even a

BibliothecaNewTestament

Bibliotheca New Testament

A Book Review By Brandon Brown The Bibliotheca project was launched as a Kickstarter to create quality reader editions of the Bible. It was so successful that the creator, Adam Lewis Greene could assemble a team to lightly update and smooth out the language of the public domain American Standard

Guest Post

Is Christian camping ministry done?

In the grand old days of many Christian’s experience, one week during the summer was devoted to a church camp experience. We roughed it in a cabin, endured the smell, survived the camp dining hall, and somehow left that place anxious to return next year. In a post-COVID 19

Book Reviews

Grace Can Lead You Home

A Book Review By Brandon Brown In the final chapter of his upcoming book, Grace Can Lead Us Home, Kevin Nye writes "Homelessness will be ended not because a few politicians have epiphanies and make new polices. It will be because communities, housed and unhoused together, force change because

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The Gate Who Needs No Keepers

By Brandon Brown This week I saw a Tweet from Rev. Dr. Tim Gaines which said: "If Jesus describes himself as the gate through which people enter (Jn 10:9), imagine what he might want to say to those who have appointed themselves gatekeepers." Judging by the amount

Planting Seeds

By Brandon Brown The Gospels are full of agricultural references because that was the world of those who first heard and experienced the Gospel story. I often consider how far we have come from those agricultural roots and how far until we no longer understand the metaphors. But as a

The Formation of Worship

By Brandon Brown My wife and I are attending a Ministerial Candidate Workshop as I write this post. This is part of the journey toward ordination and a weekend wherein we learn a little about ourselves; or at least have someone else reflect who we are based on assessments. Part

The God of Straw

By Brandon Brown A friend recently mentioned that the Gospel should have hope and the Christian life should be marked by love. I agree with that, especially considering Jesus stating that the two greatest commandments are to love God with everything and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The context

Book Reviews

Christian Ethics: A Book Review

By Brandon Brown In the introduction to his book Christian Ethics, Dr. Tim Gaines states; "The question, then, is how we’ll go about the work of ethics. We need to consider whether we’ve considered why we do what we do. We need to ask about the kind

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You Had Me at Hammond B3

He is Risen

By Brandon Brown He is risen! That was the exclamation of Mary of Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of Jesus, and other unnamed women. They were the first witnesses to the resurrection and thus the first to preach the Gospel. This was one more example of how Jesus was turning

Holy Saturday

By Brandon Brown The quiet of a new day. The initial shock has worn off, but there is still an air of disbelief. There has been a reunion of many scattered disciples and they have heard that another of their friends has died. The whys of Judas' choices and

Darkness Came Over the Land

By Brandon Brown As the life slipped from Jesus on that first Good Friday, the Gospel of Mark tells us that "darkness came over the whole land." (Mk 15:33) Those few disciples who stayed at the cross must have been feeling an incredible feeling of darkness in

Holy Week

By Brandon Brown "There's always some dude on a horse."            - Brian Zahnd The week leading up to Easter Sunday is Holy Week within Christianity. It is a week which starts with the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We call it the

Gatekeeping

By Brandon Brown My family moved into an old farmhouse on five acres when I was around nine. Our property was surrounded by land owned by two other families. On one side was a tobacco barn, and the other had cattle. There were fences and gates setup to prevent the

Grace Flowing

By Brandon Brown HE IS GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL.  HIS WAY IS IN LOVE, THROUGH WHICH WE ALL ARE. IT IS TRULY – A LOVE SUPREME.     -- John Coltrane, Liner Notes from A Love Supreme There is within my life a constant motif of jazz music. I encounter jazz as something which

Holy Community

By Brandon Brown Much of the tension in the Wesleyan-Holiness traditions and the Church of the Nazarene comes down to a tension in the experience of holiness. This tension exists between the idea of holiness expressed through personal piety versus holiness experienced in community. The former sees the answer to

Holiness Claimed

By Brandon Brown Rather than reclaiming holiness, it may be time for us to embrace ethical holiness. I feel discomfort when I hear the call to reclaim holiness or return to "biblical holiness." That discomfort is because it does not seem that holiness has gone anywhere. Discomfort also

Exposed Roots

By Brandon Brown This week a board member of the Holiness Partnership (tHP) questioned the calling and ministry of myself and several other pastors. There was even an accusation that we fail to lead people to Christ by commenting on tHP messages. To be honest, while it stung a bit,

What is Love?

By Brandon Brown In his latest book, Pluriform Love , Tom Oord seeks to define and illuminate a theology of love. Oord mentions one issue facing anyone studying love within a theological framework in chapter one; "The many meanings of love in the Bible should prompt theologians to pursue a

Rewards

By Brandon Brown I recently came upon an online discussion concerning whether rewards for the Christian varied in heaven or even on earth. The more I contemplated the question, the more I came to realize that it was a wrong question. While the scriptures speak of rewards, these are often

Using “biblical” and why the Holiness Partnership might be missing the point.

This paper explores use of the term “biblical” as an adjective and whether the Holiness Partnership is using it properly to reclaim holiness.

The Difficult Path

By Brandon Brown You may have heard the term via media, which means the middle way. While the specific term via media was not officially used until the nineteenth century, the concept can be traced to the early British reformers and most notably in Elizabeth I's religious tolerance