Years ago I was told (by someone, somewhere) that theological writing should be dispassionate, because it is supposed to be objective, not subjective. One is not supposed to put in exclamation points (!!!) or ALL CAPS or use strongly emotional language to express arguments or ideas. The reason I was given was that research is …
Continue reading Theology— Writing Dispassionately for Passionate People
I have been teaching Inter-religious Dialogue (IRD) for several years now. While teaching it, I teach several different list of "rules" associated with IRD. However, the one I tend to focus on is the 7 Rules compiled by Max Warren. But as I have been thinking about it, it occurred to me that I should …
Continue reading My Rules of Interreligious Dialogue Project
Missiology is a rather young field of study and there has been a question of whether it should be considered an academic study. And if it is an academic study, how should it relate to other academic disciplines. I get it. If one thinks about it, Missions sounds like a less than a real topic--- …
Back in 1999, I finally finished my masters thesis in Engineering Mechanics. The thesis is titled, "The Effect of Temperature of Short-term Creep Rupture Response in Polymer Matrix Pultruded Composites." At the time, I felt that the work I did was quite relevant to the expansion of knowledge in a very narrow field. I especially …
I was in a seminar in our seminary about doing research. The issue came up of what sources are legitimate for research. When the issue of blogs came up, the speaker, one of my colleagues, said that while many professors don't allow citations of blogs or “personal websites” not all feel that way. For the …
Continue reading Better than Scribblings on a Scrunched-up Piece of Paper at a Bus Stop
I periodically supervise seminarians in theses or dissertations. Usually, their papers are in missions (although sometimes I oversee other types of papers). A couple of the papers I oversaw in missions pushed the limits of what is considered to be missiological at our seminary. One had to do with process of contextualization of preaching for …
My "Missionary Member Care" Class at Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary questioned missionaries here in Asia about some of their challenges in missions. I have 11 students, and they each asked 3 missionaries 12 questions and recorded their answers. All of my students are from South Asia, East Asia, or Southeast Asia. From the 396 answers, …
Been teaching a class on Missionary Member Care. I have enjoyed it--- I make no promise that my 12 students share that opinion. After the student group presentation of Missionary Member Care in the light of the Carey Mission (especially as it relates to William Carey, John Thomas, Dorothy Carey, and Felix Carey), we had …
A simple article on five major trends: (1) Global (Non-Western) missions, (2) focus on least-reached people, (3) greater urban focus, (4) increased role of diaspora, and (5) newer definitions for missionaries. You can read this article below. 5 Trends in Global Missions | Seedbed. Or you can read a longer, similar, article. 5 Trends in …
Storytelling affects human biology, beliefs and behavior, say DARPA researchers.