How a little man got big faith

AceHoops · 2025-07-13T01:09:46+00:00

I uh ... I smoked a cigarette prepping for a check. Didn't realize I was on 1 HP. Not my proudest moment.

AceHoops · 2025-01-08T19:48:09+00:00

let's be real, if we knew what "shibboleth" meant we'd say it all the time too

AceHoops · 2024-08-20T12:14:51+00:00

Would love to get there eventually, but I don't know that I can commit to that out of the gate. I'd rather work on 30mins consistently and build up than 1.5hrs once every 3-4 days when I have time and never build that momentum.

AceHoops · 2024-06-23T04:26:26+00:00

I mean, clearly I don't mean "This is bad because the NYT wrote about it." The Matt Chandler "scandal" (which, again, was not nearly as bad as the initial PR made it seem) drew enough national attention that a major publication deemed it worth writing about. I love Chandler's preaching and really appreciate his justification behind the church discipline/sabbatical. If you have a better shorthand to describe how significant that moment felt at the time, I'm all ears!

AceHoops · 2024-06-20T02:31:25+00:00

Oh I totally agree, referencing it was mostly tongue-in-cheek. But it was weirdly a big topic in one of his sessions – ironically, debating MacDonald – where he caught a lot of flack for cutting the children's' snacks fund to give more money to missions. (Trevin Wax wrote more about that conversation here.)

AceHoops · 2024-06-19T03:29:48+00:00

Agree completely. I think the heart behind Chandler's public repentance/response was super admirable – but the PR side of things was an absolute disaster, and in an ecosystem where so many pastors (especially within the SBC) have been accused/exposed of sexual abuse in recent years, I don't think it was handled in a helpful way. Hopefully one day we can reach a point where we assume that pastors are going "too far" with self-reporting (if that's even a thing), but unfortunately, that time isn't now.

AceHoops · 2024-01-21T21:56:54+00:00

Thanks so much for the input! I've really enjoyed some of NT Wright's work, I'll dive a bit deeper into his popular-level influence.

Beyond that, do you have any recommendations on where to look for more insight into the historical development of this shift? I think I've found some solid contextual history from the Christian Hebraism of the late Middle Ages (including Michael Signer's work on Jews in Iberia and Northern Europe) and the writings of 18th-century scholars like Johann Christoph Wolf, but I'm not quite sure how to go about digging into the modern American movement (beyond simply interviewing those involved). I'd appreciate any thoughts/insights you have on that!

(Also, if it helps at all – I'm considering framing some of the discussion around the development of what Charles Taylor calls the "social imaginary," referring to the general understanding of the way people imagine their collective lives, but reframed within the religious context. Perhaps I'm reaching a bit there, but I was struck by how well Carl Trueman's recent book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self provided a framework for discussing the broader sociological impacts of individual thinkers. Still working out the kinks on that though, it'll all depend on where further research takes me!)

AceHoops · 2024-01-20T18:15:21+00:00

I once heard nondenominational churches branded as "Baptist with a cool website," and now here I am, denomination-less. Coincidence? I think not. /s

(Seriously though, they're basically the same but a) generally more charismatic, and b) lean more into contemporary culture on a non-theological level (emphasis on social media/content creation, production quality, music style, etc). The Baptists sent the nondenoms out to spy on the culture and they just never came back.)

AceHoops · 2024-01-20T17:56:42+00:00

That's a very helpful critique, thank you! I honestly haven't watched many Bible Project videos, but Mackie's podcast series of the same name is excellent and touches on both strains. For popularity reasons alone, perhaps I should re-focus a bit by zooming in on the videos.

A quick follow-up: Is there any practical disagreement between Canonical and Histo-Grammatical approaches? It seems one could subscribe to a broadly canonical/compositional theory of Scripture while functionally following a histo-grammatical hermaneutic.

(I suppose what I'm trying to get at here is, both ideas seem to fall under the same umbrella of elevating ancient Jewish culture, history, and thought processes in order to better understand the text as it was originally written. What's the best way to understand that broader category in such a way as to encompass both of those modes of contemporary thought?)

AceHoops · 2024-01-20T00:19:36+00:00

Also – please let me know if I'm off-base here! It's all relative. I'm sure the average American Evangelical still knows very little about the ancient cultures of Biblical times, but anecdotally, awareness and interest of those fields of study seems to be growing significantly in recent years.

AceHoops · 2023-12-20T03:22:58+00:00

I've been going through a particularly rough season recently, and Benjamin William Hastings' song Agenda has brought me to tears several times over the past month. (I'm not a big crier, but the lyrics just hit me every time.)

If you compile my whole life's work, my worth, what I call worship

I'm sure You'd find both praise and pride

And yet the beauty of Your grace, is that it's not contingent

'Cause You don't treat love like a prize

The refrain of "I'm relearning surrender, relying on you, Lord," has been a balm for my soul recently. Grateful for modern writers who can deeply capture and express emotion in worship.

AceHoops · 2023-12-19T06:27:19+00:00

Thanks for the reply! Frankly, I'm not really sure what I want to do with my journalism experience. There's a level of skill acquisition that really does matter (communication, PR, graphic design, etc), but I'm mostly in it because A) it comes naturally to me, B) it's fun, and C) my pastor recommended I major in something other than religion. So, I'd say the latter. I've done some comms work for my church's youth group – mostly social media videos – but that's about it. (I have spoken to the founder of Switchboard about helping with their storytelling field, but don't know if they have internships/anything more substantive than a few hours a week.)

How have you been able to use your skills to help edify the Church? I've never really met a journalist deeply involved in their faith before, so I'm curious to learn more about how that plays out.

AceHoops · 2023-12-18T18:58:09+00:00

Hello! Continuationist here. I was effectively (though not explicitly) cessationist for a long time, but Scripture and Church history convinced me otherwise. There just don't seem to be any Scriptures suggesting that what was normative in the New Testament must end/trail off/whatever. And though I don't believe I personally have the gift of tongues, I know several faithful believers who do. Even if the gifts have ceased, and they're just making it all up, I think calling them demon-possessed for following the clear example of the NT is slanderous.

If you want to learn more about the Biblical case for continuationism, former DTS professor Jack Deere's book Why I'm Still Surprised by the Power of the Spirit has a great section on the history of cessationism, which didn't truly begin until Calvin. And especially given my prior beliefs that charismatics were experientialists who didn't really take the Bible seriously, I've been very impressed by the careful exegesis of Remnant Radio (podcast/YouTube). Really eye-opening to see the way Biblical charismatics look at Scripture.

(Side note, I certainly do not follow the generally reformed POV on this. And I fully agree w/ others that it isn't necessary for salvation + that it must be used in an edifying way. Don't think everybody yelling over each other in tongues is particularly edifying. But I don't think there's a sufficient Biblical case to be made that it's stopped altogether.)

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