Women in the workplace

I'm personally somewhere in the middle of complimentarian vs. egalistarianism. I believe that the Bible could be speaking about women historically in the sense that women couldn't talk in public places, but I still find it hard to reconcile with the literal tone taken throughout multiple parts of scripture regarding this issue.

Open Theism

I disagree with Open Theists in the sense that we have true free will. I believe that predestination is God's sovereign breathing out of history.

Pannenberg

Pannenberg believes that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was more of a foreshadowing of what is to come than an actual event. This contradicts historical and theological logic.

Vatican Sequel

Vatican II addressed the outdated Catholic Church and how it could more be like the rest of the modern world. This was a good evangelistic tool for them, as they were largely seen as legalistic, boring, traditional, and legalistic.

Stop emerging

The emerging church is a growing phenomenon in the modern Christian world. It's flash and zeal, yet lack of any real theological substance beg the question: Why?

New Paul

The new perspective on Paul deals with the framework in which Paul was writing. In the Pauline epistles, many contemporary Christians see it through the lens of Luther, when really (some theologians would contend) he was writing about Jews.

The Bible

I believe The Bible is infallible. If I'm a Christian and I only believe that certain parts of the Bible are true, than how can I logically conclude that any of it is true?

Charisma

The Charismatic movement is important because it gives a kind of revitalization to the Holy Spirit that I think a lot of fundamentalists missed out on. It also presents some problems concerning the sign gifts and the legitimacy of them.

Fundamentalism

I like fundamentalism, because - when properly done - it can be one of the most Biblically sound forms of Christianity. The problem, however, arises when legalism becomes paramount to doctrine or faith.

Barmen Confession

The Barmen Confession is a theological confession that rejected the Third Reich. This was a big statement in terms of separating church and state in order for Christians to distance themselves from Nazi Germany.

Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer advocated a kind of "secular Christianity." That is to say, morally Christians had things right and that they were operationally fine. He did not, however, find much cause to evangelize or emphasize the uniqueness of Christianity.

Barth

Barth's interesting. There are things about Barth I love -- particularly the fact that he holds to election and the notion of a sovereign God. However, he doesn't believe that the Bible has to necessarily be accurate since Jesus is the word of God. This presents problems -- especially since I didn't see Jesus and rely on Biblical accounts to further know Him.

Process Theology

Process theology essentially states that God is mutable, temporary, and fallible. I have a problem with this because it's hard to say there's a supernatural being, but He's just not that supernatural.

Higher Criticism

Higher Criticism deals with a kind of literal analyzing of The Bible. Taking it as if it was any other book and analyzing it's validity based on provable facts. The problem here is that it's both a spiritual and historical document, not meant to be analyzed in such a way.

Liberation Theology

This is a theology that focuses more around the political and socioeconomic factors of religion. It's kind of a like a literary criticism put on Christianity. A niche lens through which to emphasize certain aspects of the gospel.

Jesus Seminar

The Jesus Seminar is a relatively new organization that's on a mission to historically and scientifically analyze what Jesus did. Marcus Borg, a prominent member of this society, has written many books claiming that he is a Christian, yet he marginalizes the resurrection and has a loose interpretation of scripture. This is more or less an attempt to disprove conservative Christianity.

Classical Liberalism

Classical Liberalism is the idea that fact can be subjective, and that absolutes carry far less weight than they used to.

Friedrich Shleiermacher was the "father of liberal theology." In essence, he presented a lot of new problems to conservative Christianity.

This is hugely significant, because liberal theology opens up room for The Bible, the infallible word of God, to be taken as fallible. This allowed Enlightenment Christians to reconcile their faith with convictions about science and worldly ethics.

I believe he opened a kind of flood gate. He opened the door for those who claimed to be Christians, but fundamentally changed the nature of what it means to be a Christian.

Kierkegaarden of Eden

For Kierkegaard, truth is subjective. This mindset is what helped spark the current milieu of post-modernity. This presents great problems for Christian apologists today, as the notion of a sovereign, absolute Truth is pretty hard to handle.

Hegel

Hegel was a historian and philosopher who delved into metaphysics, existentialism, and other philosophical ideas. He dealt with God in a refreshingly earnest way -- considering God to be tangible and real. Hegel saw history as a solid, immutable fact -- firm in history and greatly increasing legitimacy of miracles that happened -- contrary to Lessing.

I simply Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who was a big philosopher during the Enlightenment. Kant goes a step further from Lessing and attempts to conflate rationalism and empiricism. For Kant, we have to talk about his filter -- the filter that he claims we all have. It's a little bit like worldview, but it's slightly more obscuring than that. If we look at something, we categorize it and process it based on preconceived notions. Therefore, Kant delves largely into the study of what we know.

Neverthelessing

Lessing was a big time philosopher. He helped discern between rationalism and empiricism. Effectively, Lessing struggles with what is knowable -- he can't know that Jesus performed miracles, and thus can't believe in them. His logic was rooted in the fact that he didn't see miracles today. The problem here is that not seeing miracles doesn't mean that Jesus performed them. I don't see A

The Reformation

Luther was at one point a staunch Catholic. During Luther's time, he witnessed some of the most corrupt dealings in Catholicism. They were essentially extorting their believers into a false sense of "salvation" through tithes for purgatory and other acts. Luther reformed their theology by harkening back to scripture -- making scripture the root of faith -- not tradition. This is huge for the modern believer still today.

Medieval Church

From a logician's standpoint, the Medieval Church was huge. Aquinas and Agustine helped shape the case for Christianity as legitimate. They went about preaching Christianity from a thorough, apologetic lens that rationalized it to a milieu who otherwise didn't understand it.

Early Ecumenical Councils

The Ecumenical Councils were extremely important. Beginning with the Council of Nicea (325AD) they played a huge role in forming the foundations of Christian beliefs. They also organized much of the Christian Church -- playing a big role in Charlemangne's election as the first Holy Roman Emperor.

How the "early" church dealt with faith

Early Church: Heavily relied upon fresh eyewitness accounts of things that transpired. Used logic to combat the antagonizing counterparts to firmly establish their faith-based new religion. The Council of Nicea helped affirm normative, fundamental aspects of the Christian faith.

Medieval Church: Agustine and Aquinas run a muck on their intellectual contemporaries. Augstine helped explain the merits of ecclesiology, manergism, and reacted toward Pelagius. He did all of these things to help establish what faith meant for the medieval Christian. Aquinas made the five proofs for Christianity which helped, again, establish faith for his contemporaries.

Reformation: Luther really brought the house down in this era -- making sure that the faith of his fellow Christians was not succumbing to the works-based theology of the Catholic Church. He reminded Christians that personal salvation relied upon faith, not works.

Church Fathers

Who are the church fathers? Good question. The church fathers are the predominant men who helped nurture Christianity in its early years.

A couple of key players:

Irenaues: Intensely persecuted man who sought to explain atonement and salvation to the masses who had an obscured concept of them.

Ignatius of Antioch: Explained the Eucharist and role of the bishop as God's representatives.