My family’s favourite used bookstore is in Greenville, SC. We got to go back to the South for our summer vacation over the July 4th weekend. And our first day of family outings was a trip to Greenfield’s for bagels and Mr. K’s for books. This was our haul of books:

Because there are so many Christian colleges in the Upstate, Mr. K’s has a really solid theology section. I picked up several good finds for my shelf:

The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics is a timely find given that I’m teaching an ethics class this fall.

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Speaking of teaching ethics, the National Post highlights a new research paper that suggests the possibility of harvesting organs from PAS/MAID patients before they actually die:

“With organ donation after MAID, the person is taken to a hospital and administered life-ending drugs. Next follows a standard organ donation protocol: blood pressure is monitored via a line inserted into a small artery in the wrist to determine when the person’s heart has stopped beating.

Doctors then wait an additional five minutes — the “no touch” period — to confirm death before the person is transferred to the operating room for organ retrieval.

Death by donation “would look in some ways similar, and in some ways very different,” said first author of the new paper, Dr. Carter Winberg, a Canadian critical care doctor currently completing his masters in bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

The person would be brought to hospital and taken to an operating room, where they would receive the same sedating medications used with euthanasia. Except surgery would commence once the person was fully unconscious. Death would ultimately be caused by removal of vital organs.”

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Alan Noble reflects on how we are losing the skill and opportunity of discovery with the rise of AI summaries and chat bot answers:

When I was in graduate school and we were all relying on databases to find books and articles, I had a professor who urged us to go to the library and “dig through the stacks.” Their reasoning was that while the databases might be helpful for finding things we knew to look for (direct answers), our curiosity would allow us to discover interesting related sources if we dug around through physical books. They were right. And the same is true for online searches today. When Google chooses to spit out AI generated summaries, we aren’t getting to “dig through the stacks.” We are losing touch with information. We are one more step removed from information itself.

I fear a similar problem when it comes to writing. If a student uses a chat bot to brainstorm how to structure his/her essay, it will be formulaic and it will not open up the sometimes winding path that we discover in which we chase down a thread or idea of an argument that we want to follow or explore. Students don’t realize that the structure of an argument itself is a work of learning and exploration; it is a place where not only the student’s thought-process comes through but also his/her “voice.”

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What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.

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This is why, when I introduce students to contemplative practices, I start with Anglican prayer beads. Usually this comes after the students have been introduced to the idea that faith is embodied. Students often resonate with the call to recover the body and with the idea that Christian practices like prayer and sung worship are more than emotional feelings.

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Prayer beads are a good introduction to contemplative practice for two reasons: the beads are tactile and the prayers that go with each type of bead are simply and primarily, if not exclusively, verses of Scripture.

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Theologians:

Beth Ritter-Conn

Jennifer Matheny

Sara Koenig

Primary Sources:

Ritter-Conn, Beth and Steven Guthrie, eds. The Women's Christian Theology Reader. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2026.

Reese, Ruth Anne and Madison Pierce. Reading the Later New Testament as Christian Scripture: A Literary, Canonical, and Theological Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2026.

Keener, Michelle. A Trauma Theory Reading of the Book of Job. London: T&T Clark, 2025.

Batchelder, Caroline. Charged with the Glory of God: Yahweh, the Servant, and the Earth in Isaiah 40–55. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2023.

Help Us Grow the Library:

Do you have a source or theologian that we should add to the database? You can submit an entry for consideration here.

If you haven’t read the story about the development of this project, you can check it out here:

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“Grant us, O Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who can do no good thing apart from you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.” ~Book of Common Prayer 2019

What is the Good Life?

What does it look like?

How can we live into it?

What is the purpose of this life?

What does it mean to be human?

Why does it matter that we have been made in the image of God?

What do we do with the reality and gravity of sin?

These are the questions that my students will wrestle with this fall in my second-year undergraduate class, Theological Ethics.

While we will survey various ethical systems, the primary ethical lens for this course will be Virtue Ethics.

Over the course of 12 weeks, we’ll consider the shape of the Good Life through the following units:

• Introduction to Ethics

• The Bible and Ethics

• How Theology Impacts Ethics: Jesus’ Descent to the Dead and Theological Anthropology

• Introduction to Ethical Systems

• Pursuing the Good Life: Introduction to Virtue Ethics

• The Beginning of the Good Life

• Limitations (?) of the Good Life: Disease and Disability

• Enjoying the Good Life

• The Good Life and the Polis

• The End of the Good Life

Case studies include:

Each unit will have corresponding case studies in which students will apply what they have learned and interrogate the ethical issue theologically.

• Testing Our Introduction to Ethical Systems with the Question of Lying

• Consumerizing Conception: World’s Biggest Family, Surrogacy, and Adoption

• Choosing Disability: Genetic Manipulation, Surgical Interventions, and BIID

• Forgetting our Humanity: Alzheimer’s Disease

• Bringing it to the Real: Premarital Counseling

• Offloading the Pursuit of the Good Life: Technology and Ethics

• Extreming the Good Life: The Impact of Elite Sports on the Body

• Bringing it to the Real: Recovering Funerals, Burials, and Church Graveyards

Students will read:

A Sampling of what I’m reading this summer to prep for class:

Because it has been five years since I last taught this class, I’m refreshing my lecture notes. Here are a few of the resources I’m incorporating:

The Full Bibliography for the Course:

If you’d like to see the full bibliography for the course, it can be found here.

If you’re not an undergraduate student living on the Canadian prairie and would like the opportunity to explore these topics, I am currently planning out my 2027 speaking engagements. I’m available to lead retreats, guest lecture, and facilitate weekend class intensives.

The summer reading group at church has wrapped up our time with G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. It prompted me to dust off another Chesterton book on my shelf. When I was in college, I took an English Lit class that was an interesting grab bag of books including The Napoleon of Notting Hill. The book sits on my shelf, and I know I read it for class, but I have no memory of it whatsoever (so I can’t call it a re-read since I don’t remember any of it).

I finished it in time for our last meetup so that I could reflect on the similarities and differences, and I’m struck at how much more accessible this book is than The Man Who Was Thursday. In Napoleon, Chesterton sets the story in the future, 1984, and uses it as a vehicle to comment on and critique London culture of his day (1904). It is sharp, it is insightful, and it is fun.

I think I was expecting more from The Man Who Was Thursday, that it would be like Sophie’s World, when in fact it is just a nightmare with oddities and nonsense.

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Norway has announced a ban on AI in primary schools:

Starting in the new academic year beginning in late August, the proposals will apply to most children in the age groups 6–13.

According to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, using AI increases the risk of young children skipping important steps in their education:

The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics.

How I wish that a similar ban would come to the schools in Saskatchewan. This year has been difficult for my son at the local, rural elementary school. The teacher is creating assignments using AI but not proof-reading them; when the kids try to do the assignment, and it doesn’t make sense, the teacher’s nonchalant answer is, “Oh, I guess I should have read through it first.” Assignments are graded by AI because the teacher is “too busy.” And the majority of students aren’t actually doing the work, but having AI do it for them. When my son informs the teacher that he’s not allowed to use AI (our rule), he is dismissed as being out of touch.

For my kids in high school, it’s been a bit better, though there is one funny story. In one class, the students were told to use AI to create a script for a skit they were then to perform. Because we have a “no AI” policy in our house, our daughter wrote her script herself. And when the scripts were performed, lo and behold, only her script actually worked out to match the instructions of the assignment, including how long the skit was supposed to last. All of the skits created by AI were nearly half as long as they needed to be (and pretty lame).

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Michael Niebauer has a beautiful reflection on how liturgical rhythms and worship habits are not merely rote but actually cultivate deep memories that endure and equip us to worship as we age:

But there is a deeper explanation underlying our eventual cognitive decline. God in his great mercy has allowed our brains to deteriorate in this manner so that we might continue to worship Him even as we approach death. God has enabled us to spend the first 60 years of our lives preparing to worship Him when our mind deteriorates in our 70s or 80s. We are called to build deep, shared memories of worship that imbed themselves in multiple parts of our brain and encode themselves on our body. But there is a catch—we also need others—friends, family, and above all, the church, to help us continue to worship Christ in those waning hours.

Mission - Ethics - Interpretation

Will I Worship Christ with Dementia?

Each week a handful of women are wheeled into an activities room and placed six feet in front of me. They are all in various stages of dementia. Some can carry on simple, if circular, conversations. Others are close to non-verbal. But when we start our weekly worship service a transformation occurs. Those who couldn’t string together two sentences sudde…

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3 months ago · 14 likes · 2 comments · Michael Niebauer

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With my garden in full bloom, I have been carving out time each evening to read something non-academic while sitting on my back porch. I recently finished Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. This was a beautiful book.

What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.

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“A sermon is the product of the preacher’s own meditative reading. A sermon is not a doctrinal treatise; neither does it offer an inductive study of the biblical text per se. A sermon is the outcome of an encounter. The preacher has met with God in and through the biblical text. After reading the biblical text numerous times, after meditating deeply upon its words, and after a prayerful and often painful encounter with the God of the Scriptures, the preacher shares his meditation with the congregation. And by sharing the fruit of meditation, the preacher invites the congregation in turn to meditate upon the biblical text…The purpose of the sermon is the same as that of Scripture: it invites listeners to attend to human words so that they may encounter the eternal Word himself.” (pg. 210)

Sermon prep as an extended type of lectio divina for both the preacher and on behalf of the congregation is not probably something most of us were taught we when took our required classes on homiletics.

I want to suggest that understanding sermon prep as a form of lectio divina is helpful, especially for those of us who are trained in figural interpretation of Scripture (aka TIS), because one of the very real struggles is: how much “figural” is too much? Just because there are figural connections in the text should the preacher necessarily draw them out, exposit them, or introduce them to his or her congregation?

Let me give you an example…

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For each child, I try to curate a list of books that include the following:

• books they’ve never read

• a book that would be a good re-read

• a favourite series or a couple of books that would be “fluffy” reading

• a book that would be a stretch for them to read

• something non-fiction (preferably history)

Here is this year’s reading list:

11th grader:

Julie by Catherine Marshall

One book by Pierre Berton, such as:

• Vimy

• Klondike

• The Last Spike

• The Great Depression

• The Dionne Years

start the The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

Plato’s Republic

Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

9th grader:

At least two books in the Anne of Green Gables series

Christy by Catherine Marshall

1 Terry Pratchett book, such as:

• The Wee Free Men

• A Hat Full of Sky

• Hogfather

2 Cynthia Voigt books, such as:

• The Tillerman Cycle

• Jackaroo

At least 2 in the Monks and Mystics series

The Hawk and the Dove

1 Louis L’Amour book

Pride and Prejudice

7th grader:

1 Pierre Berton book from the History for Young Canadians Series

At least 2 in the Monks and Mystics series

1 Terry Pratchett book

1 Louis L’Amour

The Ickabog by JK Rowling

1 Ray Bradbury short story

Ender’s Game

Residue by Steve Diamond

Recommended Reading List Resources:

Over the years, I have used the following resources to help think through what my kids will read each summer:

A Complete Classical Christian School Reading List (Grades 1–8)

Classical Reader

Redeemed Reader

Here is last year’s reading challenge:

What are your kids reading this summer? Let me know in the comments.

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We have a tendency to separate our theology from the actions of our life. We may believe certain theological concepts and doctrines, but we struggle to see how they not only apply but shape our action of living the Christian faith. Belief and practice are not nearly as separate as we make them. Instead, belief and practice are two sides of the same coin. In the four-fold sense of scripture, the moral sense bridges this gap. The tropological sense of Scripture forces us to think about how we live the Christian life.

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But what happens when the AI goes awry and thinks that the women profiled on the Women and Theology Database are actively writing today and are in need of promotional help?

I received an email that was so absurd that, of course, I need to share it.

What I think happened:

I think an AI bot tried to scrape the Women and Theology webpage, specifically the search page, and it picked up the spotlight cards that rotate each day on the page:

But instead of recognizing them as entries in a database, it thought that the page and the resources listed were more like an author’s personal webpage.

The Result:

The email is addressed to Anne Vaughan Lock who was a 16th Calvinist writer. The body of the email even recognizes that this is an historical figure:

• “you did”

• “born to merchant class parents who served in the court of Henry VIII”

Being dead for 500 years isn’t a hurdle for this AI promotion bot “named” Doris, because:

“I have noticed that even brilliant and essential works like yours often struggle not because of quality, but because of gaps in visibility strategy.”

Therefore, AI bot to the rescue:

These strategies can help your book find all the readers who are still waiting to discover a woman who took on the roles of reformer, poet, translator, correspondent, spiritual counselor, and political advocate in sixteenth century England.

If you are open to it, simply reply "yes" and I will send over a brief, no pressure plan of action I have sketched specifically for Selected Poetry, Prose, and Translations. I would love to help your book find all the readers who are still waiting to hear your voice, placed in the larger context of the Tudor period, offering insight into the intertwined complexities of political, social, and religious life.

What’s even funnier is the "work” that the AI bot is proposing to help promote, “Selected Poetry, Prose, and Translations,” doesn’t even appear as an entry in the database:

The Takeaway:

Would I like more people to find the database helpful? Yes. Is the solution having AI bots crawling and scraping the internet, landing on the database and trying to engage with it? Absolutely not.

So, the work of curating (and curating well) continues. To date: there are nearly 500 women in the database, and entries for more than 1,600 primary and secondary sources. One of my love languages is handing people books or pointing them to resources. It is always delightful watching people discover women who have written on theology and biblical studies. The database is, in many ways, a labour of love.

Speaking of which, I am building phase three of the database. This phase includes historians and philosophers. I am anticipating phase three will go live in the fall. Stay tuned!

To learn more about the database:

I’m in a summer reading group at church, and we are reading G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday.

This is completely new for me. I have read The Father Brown Mysteries, and in college I read The Napoleon of Notting Hill (and have no memory at all of anything in that book or what it is even about; but it is on my bookshelf; maybe I should re-read it?), but that’s my limited exposure to Chesterton’s writings. We’ve read the first five chapters of Thursday so far, and, because I don’t know where it’s going, it feels quite disorienting. In some ways, I’m anticipating that it will be like Sophie’s World, in that everything, especially the seven anarchists named after days of the week, will represent something more than they are, but even that is just speculation.

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Katelyn Beatty has an essay about the use of AI in Christian publishing, in light of the fact that, for years, the industry has been okay with ghostwriters doing the bulk (or totality) of the writing for the celebrity pastor or influencer:

Readers reasonably expect publishers to vet authors, because publishing a book can give someone a platform, notoriety, and revenue streams that they wouldn’t otherwise have. In other words, a book extends an author’s authority and power. Vetting takes on a spiritual tinge in Christian book publishing. To be sure, a publisher needn’t know an author’s personal life intimately, and publishers get duped too. But for the sake of their own reputation, a publisher ought to care about an author’s creative integrity.

When an author is claiming to be a spiritual authority figure, then deceptively passes off writing churned out by ChatGPT as their own, profiting from the deception in the form of the advance, royalties, speaking engagements, and so on, their publisher becomes complicit in the deception.

But I worry that the industry has already ceded too much ground. As I spent a chapter outlining in Celebrities for Jesus, the Christian publishing industry “hasn’t been able to resist the ascendancy of celebrity in a consumerist culture.” Platforms still play an outsize role in who gets a book deal, because that’s what sells books. At the end of the day, publishing is a business, and businesses exist to create profit.

I’ve even seen authors that I trust openly promote AI as part of their research process. As a result, I find myself distrusting anything with a publication date after 2022.

It is disheartening. I have been chipping away at my scholarly (but accessible to educated laypeople) manuscript, “Reading Scripture as Witness,” since I finished my dissertation. It is slow going, because I am juggling a co-vocational life in academia and in the parish. It may take me another five years before the manuscript is done. And for what? If the Christian publishing industry treats books as “products” and tools of “social media strategy,” what publisher would want to take a risk on a well-researched, slowly written book by a co-vocational academic?

And, I have already accepted the fact that my quiet, slice of life novel that is halfway done (anticipating finishing it this summer!) will have to be self-published. That makes me sad, because the novel isn’t a vanity project.

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In the Anglican world, there’s been a bit of back and forth about the Abuja Affirmation. Jay Thomas, writing over at First Things, argues that there is an inherent contradiction in the theology and polity of GAFCON, especially as expressed in the Jerusalem Declaration and the Abuja Affirmation:

It is true that the Anglican Communion has existed in a state of impaired communion over the issue of women’s ordination for almost half a century. Abuja enshrines this compromised contradiction while explicitly rejecting other compromises, all for the sake of a common confession. The fruit of this contradiction is the rejection of the teaching authority of the church’s historic and magisterial tradition…By enshrining this liberal Protestant contradiction, GAFCON has doubled down on the ecclesiological issues of authority that led Nazir-Ali to join the Catholic Church, deepening rather than alleviating the compulsion of many faithful Anglicans to follow.

George Conger responds by noting that classical Anglican theology and polity has allowed for a lattice or ordering of doctrines; not all theological doctrines are of the “first order.” If anything, Thomas is advocating for a Roman Catholic understanding of authority that is antithetical to the Thirty-Nine Articles. Conger writes:

The Elizabethan Settlement itself embodied comprehensive orthodoxy—maintaining doctrinal boundaries while permitting ceremonial and interpretive diversity. GAFCON’s approach mirrors this pattern: communion despite disagreement on women’s ordination, boundaries on sexual ethics. This isn’t contradiction; it’s classical Anglicanism.

Unless, of course, you believe classical Anglicanism is itself incoherent—in which case, why remain Anglican at all?

Thomas deploys Michael Nazir-Ali’s conversion like a trump card, as if the former bishop’s departure proves GAFCON’s incoherence. But this proves exactly the opposite of what Thomas intends.

Nazir-Ali left Anglicanism because he became convinced that legitimate ecclesial authority requires visible, juridical continuity centered in a magisterial office. Fair enough. Many thoughtful people reach this conclusion. But it’s a Roman Catholic conclusion, not an Anglican one. Nazir-Ali’s trajectory demonstrates that certain premises about authority and tradition lead inexorably to Rome—which is why the English Reformers rejected those premises.

If Thomas thinks Nazir-Ali’s logic is sound, he should follow him across the Tiber. But he can’t invoke Nazir-Ali’s departure as evidence of GAFCON’s failure while simultaneously claiming to articulate an Anglican position. The Reformers made a decisive choice: doctrinal faithfulness to Scripture over institutional continuity with a corrupted authority structure. GAFCON is simply making the same choice in different circumstances.

Here’s the actual contradiction: Thomas appeals to Anglican identity while advocating for an authority structure that Article VI, Article XX, and the entire trajectory of the English Reformation explicitly rejected.

This question of ecclesial authority, the doctrine of sola Scriptura, and how flexible the Thirty-Nine Articles are to interpretation and application is at the heart of one of the classes I teach on Anglican History and Theology. In Anglican History and Theology II (1662 to present) we tackle this question when we get to our material on John Henry Newman and his Tract 90: Can the Thirty-Nine Articles be reinterpreted in a more Catholic direction or are they thoroughly Protestant? It always leads to robust discussion in our tutorial session, and then I offer my own take: The Thirty-Nine Articles are thoroughly and unashamedly Protestant. While there may be some flexibility in interpretation and application (especially within the broader Protestant tradition of the Reformation as played out by later Calvinist/Puritan and Arminian/Wesleyan expressions), there is also a very clear outer boundary; those who come to that boundary either have to respect it by either staying within the boundary or rejecting the Anglican tradition and departing for either Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.

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“The Athanasian Creed may be used in place of the Nicene Creed on Trinity Sunday and other occasions as appropriate.” (2019 Book of Common Prayer)

“Upon these feasts, Christmas Day, the Epiphany, Saint Matthias, Easter Day, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, Saint John the Baptist, Saint James, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Matthew, Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Saint Andrew, and upon Trinity Sunday, shall be sung or said at Morning Prayer, instead of the Apostles’ Creed, this confession of our Christian faith, commonly called the Creed of Saint Athanasius, by the minister and people, standing.” (1662 Book of Common Prayer, International Edition).

I teach a two-semester course on Anglican History and Theology and each week over the course of the year students read and translate the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571 for a hypothetical (or real) catechetical audience. It never fails, when we get to Article VIII Of The Three Creeds, that the question becomes: Is there a place for the Athanasian Creed in the life of the church today? Most of our congregations have never heard the Athanasian Creed read before, and those who have read it or tried to recite it trip over both its language and its length.

This is unfortunate, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the challenges of introducing the Creed to the life of the parish are insurmountable.

How to Introduce the Athanasian Creed in Church

Start with one Sunday a year, namely Trinity Sunday. The 2019 BCP allows for the Athanasian Creed to be recited in place of the Nicene Creed on Trinity Sunday. This is a good starting place for introducing the Creed. As a congregation becomes more accustomed to it, it can begin to be included on the other traditional feast days.

Talk about the Athanasian Creed in the sermon. It is always notoriously difficult to preach on the Trinity. The temptation is strong to introduce object lessons, metaphors, or analogies to explain the Trinity, but this almost inevitably results in accidental, if not intentional, heresy. Preach the biblical text assigned and as your move to application, talk about the Athanasian Creed: it’s purpose, it’s history, and it’s catechetical qualities. Depending on the congregation, the preacher may want to choose one or two phrases or key terms to unpack and explain.

Print the Athanasian Creed as a handout or as an insert in the church bulletin. Because of its length, people struggle with knowing where in the creed they are, how much they have said, and how much they still have to say. Creating a handout allows the people to see each line of the Creed in context of the overall creedal narrative. This is especially important if the majority of a church’s liturgy is usually done through slides projected on screens. It also allows people to take the creed home with them for further reflection.

Recite the Athanasian Creed responsively. Because of its length and the language used, I recommend breaking the Creed up into a call and response. It is also helpful to allow the congregation to remain seated for the first half of the Creed and having them stand at the line, “Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believer rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And, of course, no Trinity Sunday is complete without at least a passing reference to Lutheran Satire’s Bad Analogies. Send out the video to your congregation the day before church or immediately after the service (don’t play it in the service). And don’t be scared to practice your very bad Irish accent if you mention the dangers of modalism in your sermon: “That’s modalism, Patrick!”

What is your church doing to mark Trinity Sunday? Let me know in the comments.

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Here are two simple practices for marking the feast of Pentecost that can be incorporated into the Sunday service without altering or diminishing the Sunday liturgy.

Dramatic Reading of Acts 2:1–11

The first lesson assigned for Pentecost Sunday is Acts 2:1–11 (alternatively, the Acts reading can also be the NT lesson if the first lesson is Genesis 11:1–9).

A simple practice, that is not unfamiliar to Anglicans, is to do a dramatic reading of the text. (It is common to do a dramatic reading of the Passion Narrative on Palm Sunday, inviting several readers to share in the reading as well as having the congregation take on the role of the crowds yelling “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”)

In the case of the Acts 2 reading, the dramatized reading involves the reader and various people from the congregation who can read the Bible in a language other than English. The reader will begin the reading as normal, but at the end of verse 6, “because each one was hearing them speak in his own language,” there is a pause. Here, various people in your congregation will stand up and read Psalm 104:31–35 in a variety of languages.

Why Psalm 104:31–35?

The conclusion of the Acts passage says, “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” The Psalm appointed for Pentecost Sunday is Psalm 104:24–35 and the last five verses testify to the mighty works of God.

How Should Psalm 104:31–35 Be Read?

The Acts passage describes bewilderment because the people in the crowd each heard the disciples speaking in his/her own language. To capture this bewilderment, have all of the readers read Psalm 104:31–35 at the same time in the various languages. Depending on the language, some of the readers will finish sooner than others, that’s okay. I also recommend having the readers stay in the pews, standing and reading from their places.

Which Languages?

This is where the unique diversity of your congregation will come into play. You might be surprised at the languages read and spoken in your congregation. In my local congregation, because we draw primarily from the Christian college and seminary, we will have people reading in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Russian, and French. Several years ago, I attended a Pentecost service in a large urban setting, and the rector noted that there were 11 distinct languages (including Tamil, Korean, and Mandarin) read during that reading.

Sample Reading and Instructions to Be Given to the Lead Reader

Reader: Our first Lesson is from Acts chapter 2.

[Pause as people turn there in their Bibles]

[Repeat Book and Chapter]: Acts chapter 2, beginning at verse 1.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

[PAUSE. READERS FROM THE CONGREGATION STAND AND READ PSALM 104:31–35 IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES. WHEN THE READERS ARE DONE THEY WILL SIT DOWN.]

And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Wearing Red and Having Cake

Another simple practice for marking Pentecost is to invite the congregation to wear red. It doesn’t have to be just the clergy wearing red as they don their stoles and the altar table and lectern being adorned in red; the congregation can also wear red. My favourite is when introverts find creative ways to participate in wearing red without wanting to draw attention to themselves; this usually involves red socks tucked discreetly under business casual pants or a simple red tie.

If you have coffee and fellowship immediately after the service, this is a good Sunday to upgrade from muffins and fruit to cake, specifically birthday cake. Pentecost is the birthday of the church, so let there be cake (sprinkles and all!).

For more resources on celebrating Pentecost, including my go-to books on the Holy Spirit, check out Celebrating Pentecost:

How do you celebrate Pentecost in your church? Let me know in the comments.

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Theologians:

Martha Giltinan

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

Primary Sources:

Sr. Frances Anna. A Garden Enclosed: Practical Studies in Religious Life (1907). Anglican Compass, 2025.

Wilson, Sarah Hinlicky. “Spiritless Lutheranism, Fatherless Pentecostalism, and a Proposed Baptismal-Christological Corrective.” Pneuma 34 (2012): 415–29.

Secondary Sources:

Lossky, Olga. Toward the Endless Day: The Life of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.

Wilson, Sarah Hinklicky. Woman, Women, and the Priesthood in the Trinitarian Theology of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel. London: T&T Clark, 2015.

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Help Us Grow the Library:

Do you have a source or theologian that we should add to the database? You can submit an entry for consideration here.

If you haven’t read the story about the development of this project, you can check it out here:

I had the privilege of meeting Aberdeen Livingstone this past October in Vancouver, after a mutual friend connected us together. Aberdeen has a beautiful article over at Christianity Today about the elite level sports, chronic pain, embodied living, and the hope of resurrection:

As I watch people perform the seemingly impossible, for a moment it doesn’t matter that I—or the vast majority of those watching—will never be able to shoot a bullseye or run 26.2 miles in under two and a half hours. Because the greatness we witness is for all of us to enjoy and be inspired by.

Obviously, the opposite can happen. Jealousy and vainglory can corrode our souls, whether as competitors or devoted fans. And ecstasy about humanity and its excellence, turned into an idol, can delude us into forgetting about our Maker.

But all the same, I have experienced moments of joy at the mere fact that some people’s bodies move in marvelous ways, moments that have lifted me outside of my own circumstances and reminded me that I, simply due to my existence as a human being, am part of something glorious, a people made in God’s image…

I love the Olympics because I often feel my body is a prison, a foe, a letdown; I resent being bound by matter; I am suspicious of touch because it is more often associated with pain than with pleasure. But when I watch people who are so completely at home in, at one with, their bodies, I remember that being embodied is a gift too. I share in the dignity and gift of being an embodied human, even though the details of my experience are different from an Olympian’s. I get a taste of experiencing the Edenic truth that my body is good.

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Over on his Substack, my husband has a review of Carl Trueman’s To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse. Chuck writes:

To Change All Worlds is a short and concise introduction to thinkers whom you might not have heard of, but whose impact is still being felt. If you are not familiar with Critical Theory, it can be a valuable resource.

The fact that this is a good introduction is also a source of the weaknesses of the book. If you are already familiar with Critical Theory, and want a more in-depth examination of these impactful thinkers, or a more thorough Christian critique of the movement, then you might want to find something else to read…

The other part of this being an introduction is that Trueman stops too soon for my taste. Once we get to the 1940s and 50s, the story ends, with Critical Theorists developing their analyses of sex and media. There is barely a mention of later, non-Frankfurt-School, theory development (at times, Trueman cops an attitude about current Critical Theory, describing it as a weaker and dumber iteration of superior early scholarship. Your vocabulary word for the day is epigone). For myself, I would have liked the book to be twice as long, showing how early Critical Theory developed into its current forms.

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With the semester having come to an end, I’ve started into my fun reading.

I’m reading a spy thriller, Damascus Station by David McCloskey. I haven’t read a book in this genre probably since I was in college. It’s been a nice change of pace.

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I just finished Carl Trueman’s new book, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades our Humanity. This book will be one of the assigned texts in the Christian Ethics class I’ll be teaching at the end of the summer (August 24–28). If you’d like to come and spend a week on the Canadian prairie taking a seminary class all about the Good Life, come and join me!

I’m looking forward to digging into Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. I’ll be reading this as part of a faculty reading group this fall, but I want to get a jump on it this summer.

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What are you reading? Let me know in the comments.

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The first time we met in-person (we had been corresponding via email up until that point) it was so that Chuck could borrow some of my books. We had been having an extended email conversation about philosophy, postmodernism, and Christianity (remember, I’m a theologian; my husband is a psychology professor), and I had recommended a book that he should read.

A couple of days later, Chuck emails back saying that he tried to find the book at the local bookstore but they didn’t have it; he tried a couple of others and still couldn’t find it (remember, this was over twenty years ago, and Amazon prime wasn’t yet a thing). I don’t know if I suggested it or if he did, but maybe it would be easier if we met for coffee and he could borrow my book? So we met. That first date did not go well (Chuck’s version of the story is a bit different), but I remember not being bummed about the bad date so much as I was disappointed that I was never going to see my books again.

As a theologian, I regularly recommend books. As a professor, I always have students do a preliminary bibliography for their papers, and I mark it up with all kinds of suggestions of what books to either swap out or add.

At home, we are doing classical education, and I love curating the kids’ summer reading challenge.

One of my friends frequently gets annoyed with me when I add yet another book recommendation to his “to read” list. (But, I have softened a little bit and said it’s okay to buy the ebook or listen to the audio book version as an acceptable substitute for reading the physical book.)

The main reason I have kept my X/Twitter account active, even though I don’t post much, is so that I can follow all of the book recommendations and announcements of new releases.

But in the last year or so there has been one thing that has changed. When I look up a book on Amazon to either buy it or put it on my wishlist, I normally peruse the the “Customers also bought” or “Recommended for you” options that the system generates. Unfortunately, I can’t do that any more. So much of what is popping up in those algorithm-generated lists is AI slop. That’s right, AI slop has invaded the world of theology, and it’s dreadful.

Tim Challies is writing about the rise of AI slop in the theology world this week:

You’ll find that these systematic theology texts follow a fairly standard pattern. They tend to offer multiple variations of the book, most often editions for adults, teens, and children. At this point, the majority of them seem to be structured around 52 chapters representing 52 weeks of study. So, for example, here are three “authors” and their works…

These are just three of the many similar “authors” you can find on Amazon and other resellers. So far, these books appear primarily within the systematic theology category, but I am beginning to see them appear in other categories as well. I have little doubt that, unless Amazon and other retailers crack down on them, they will proliferate across every category and genre in the days to come.

Challies concludes his article by offering four recommendations:

• Be careful when buying books from sites like Amazon

• If you do end up with a book that is AI generated return it

• Make use of legitimate bookstores

• Prepare yourself because the problem is probably going to get worse

What Challies is missing in his recommendations is “find a good curator.” While bookstores, in a way, curate books, they still have profit margins to consider and often they fill their shelves with what sells even if it’s not good (I’m not trying to throw Christian bookstores under the bus here, but I’m always saddened when the academic/theology section is a fraction of the shelf space compared to the shelves devoted to Christian living and Christian romance). What does it look like to find a good curator?

The Qualities of a Good Curator

A good curator may be the owner of a bookstore or a librarian or a pastor or a professor but could also be just a very well-read person.

A good curator will recommend books even if she read and disagreed with them when she knows that it will be a helpful book for the person looking for recommendations and suggestions.

A good curator will do the work of finding good books when the person asks for suggestions and the curator doesn’t have an immediate recommendation.

A good curator will be invested in and know the person who is asking for book suggestions.

A good curator will know the reading ability and bandwidth that the person has to read in this season of his life. The curator will know not only the best books in the field, but also the ones that, while they may not be the best, will be better suited to the reader.

A good curator will know when to suggest a book that will stretch the reader.

A good curator will be humble, know that his expertise and exposure has limits, and is willing to recommend another curator for books outside of his area of expertise.

A good curator will be passionate about books and his enthusiasm will inspire the reader to read more.

And finally, a good curator is always willing to meet to chat about a book over a cup of tea.

So, dear reader, with the rise of AI slop, I recommend that you find a good curator. And I can guarantee that in finding a good curator you will most likely also find a good conversation partner and friend.

Does it matter?

Why bother?

What difference does any of this make given how small this ministry is?

Have you seen how big the problems are in the world?

These are questions that people in ministry wrestle with, especially those of us serving in small churches or co-vocationally.

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A new year means a stack of new books on my “to read” list. I’m also curating my “pre-order” list of books that are releasing this year. For example, I’ve pre-ordered Carl Trueman’s new book, The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity. I’ve also received a pre-pub copy of Hannah King’s new book, Feasting on Hope: How God Sets…

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Have you ever heard people get into a competition about how early they start celebrating Christmas? “I put my tree up at the beginning of November.” “Well, I start watching Hallmark Christmas movies in September.” “Yeah, well I listen to Christmas music in July!”

One reaction might be to protest: Christmas starts at Christmas and goes for 12 days! Advent…

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Last week, I wrote about my top reads of 2025.

Today’s post is a look back at the movies and shows I watched in 2025.

Movies:

Most of the movies we watched were not released in 2025, but they were all new to either me and my husband, or i…

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Not including commentaries or other readings that I dipped in and out of for sermon and/or course preps, I read 24 books. Below, I survey some of those books under three general categories: theology, fiction, and n…

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