Catalyst Publications
Publications by Category
In the first installment to this three-part series, I began to sketch the broad contours of God’s story in the Bible, focusing on Creation and Fall, then anticipating God’s ongoing response to bring healing and reconciliation to creation.
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Feb/03/2014
More Than a Professor
Few generations produce thinkers of such importance that their work has an influence well beyond their immediate context. The history of Christian thought is littered with countless scholars whose legacy goes to the g…
Jan/29/2014
The Bible narrates a story. Its narrative is an all encompassing one that attempts to account for the world, humanity, and the divine as it was at the beginning, as it is today, and as it will be in the future. Post-modernism would call it …
Jan/27/2014
Any local church pastor will eventually be asked the question that the lawyer asked Jesus in Luke 10:25: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (NRSV) – or the more common wording in contemporary American evangelical circles, “How can I …
Jan/20/2014
A few years ago, there was a “Call to Action” in United Methodism. It urged the following: “A number of practices that foster congregational vitality are known to the church and we can and must choose to dedicate attention, leadership, and …
Jan/13/2014
What could possibly be better than “the most wonderful time of the year”?
This is an important pastoral and theological question as the twelve days of Christmas wind down and the bills begin to roll in, as we pack up the decorations and …
Jan/06/2014
As a pastor, I take special delight in the fact that a lot of the passion for the poor and disenfranchised that Pope Francis has, seems to come from his life as a priest. There is something about being “with the people,” walking among the p…
Dec/23/2013
The pope matters. For many years I have been persuaded that Christians of all denominations should pay attention to the teachings of the bishop of Rome. After all, if one is going to be a Protestant, it is probably a good idea to stay up to…
Dec/16/2013
Having introduced the general topic of the “lost art of catechesis,” I want now to explore some aspects of what is missing in the catechesis of our congregations.
Recently, Christian Smith at Notre Dame and Kenda Creasy Dean at Princeton…
Dec/09/2013
“To be Wesleyan,” wrote Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, “is to be committed to a theology of love” (A Theology of Love [Beacon Hill, 1972], 101] Although John Wesley does not deviate from the Protestant reformers in insisting that salvation is by gr…
Dec/04/2013
One of the great challenges we face today in the process of evangelism is to initiate persons into a faith anchored in God’s missional church. This is a difficult task because North American ecclesiology has been deeply compromised by consu…
Dec/02/2013
Eight books from Genesis to Ruth open the OT, and 24 commentaries stand ready to guide readers through them. For Genesis, Bill T. Arnold (New Cambridge Biblical Commentary; Cambridge University Press, 2009) applies literary criticism to fin…
Nov/27/2013
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A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE) John Wesley Fellowships have been awarded to three doctoral stud…
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Announcing that 2026 John Wesley Fellowship Scholarship Applications are now being accepted. Please see the at…
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JWF and Friends of AFTE, we look forward to you joining us Thursday-Sunday, January 15-18, 2026, for the AFTE …
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Twenty John Wesley Fellows, spouses, and friends were able to experience a trip of a lifetime. The travel itin…
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