The Future of Practical Theology Among Free Will Baptists
We can identify much of what we seek to do in everyday life as “practical theology.” We’ve grown accustomed to various mantras and assertions that “all of life is theological”—and it is. We cannot avoid thinking, feeling, and behaving in theological ways. All of life is under the lordship of Christ, and thus it is all, ultimately, of theological significance. Yet, if all of theology is not only Christ-centered and biblically-based but...
A Serious Concern for Discipleship
by Eric K. Thomsen In recent decades, the American church has expressed much hand-wringing angst over the challenges it faces. Concerned leaders point to growing numbers of young people who have abandoned their congregations and their faith. They groan over shrinking churches, an increasingly secularized culture, and the gradual compromise of church to culture. While these concerns are valid, perhaps the most pressing theological...
The Helwys Society Forum: Ten Years Later
This month marks the ten-year anniversary of the founding of the Helwys Society Forum (HSF). If you can believe it, our first article posted in February 2010. As a result, the next three posts will consider the HSF and its members. This article is co-written by its three founders: Matthew Steven Bracey, Jesse F. Owens, and W. Jackson Watts. Each of us will offer our reflections from the past ten years. Bracey When I think about the...
Free Will Baptists and the “Mind-body Problem”
Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? These questions of identity rank among Leroy Forlines’s “inescapable questions of life.”[1] And as Forlines notes, these inquiries are not the result of mere curiosity; they are instead our entire beings’ profound cry for answers.[2] Understanding who we are, both in body and in soul, is essential to understanding our purposes and perceptions in and of the world. Much of the foundation of our lives...
Grace in Arminian Thought: A Plea for Clarity
by Jeremy Craft A few years ago I found myself in a discussion with a Free Will Baptist minister who was uneasy with how I taught about the believer’s perseverance. To him, my strong emphasis on grace sounded too Calvinistic, as if I believe in the doctrine of eternal security (once saved, always saved) and that grace gives license for sin. Yet this very same minister had also heard me teach on the doctrine of apostasy. Interestingly...
Recent Comments