Catalyst Publications
Publications by Category
When at the Methodist Conference it was asked, “What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design in raising up the Preachers called Methodist,” the answer was, “To reform the nation, particularly the church, and to spread scriptural holine…
Apr/01/2007
Human Life Is Shaped by Some Story
All of human life is shaped by some story. A. MacIntyre offers an amusing story to show how particular events receive their meaning in the context of a story (cf. After Virtue [Notre Dame Press, 1984] 210…
Mar/01/2007
Who Gets to Narrate the World?
Recently B. Weber and P. Kenyon issued a clarion call to the evangelical community that has garnered widespread involvement and support by Christian leaders. After briefly setting the stage by affirming the a…
Mar/01/2007
When a husband pulls out the “authority” or “submission” word, a marriage is in trouble because a relationship is failing. So also, when Christians use the “authority” word in discussions of Scripture the church is in trouble. Why? Because …
Mar/01/2007
Two elements that more than any other constituted the distinctive doctrine of Wesley’s movement are salvation and grace. Now we turn to the coordinate term “discipline,” by which the early Methodists designated a pattern of spiritual practi…
Mar/01/2007
A proper theology of the cross, if you think about it, is simply Christian talk for the mending of broken relationships. As such, it involves two dialogue partners. The first is the arena in which these broken relationships are experienced,…
Feb/01/2007
To some degree, context is everything when discussing the doctrine of the church. Presently, we must seek to understand the church in a context of dizzying change; indeed, the only thing that seems to stay the same is Western culture’s mono…
Feb/01/2007
Wesley’s Methodism has its roots in the disciplined life of the Holy Club at Oxford, but it took shape as a distinctive movement within the transatlantic awakening of the eighteenth century. The term “Methodist” was given to any person or g…
Feb/01/2007
The most central way of exploring the mystery of redemption in the early church was by drawing typological lines from Adam to Christ. Drawing on passages such as Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15:45-49, the second-century Church Father, Irenaeus, re…
Nov/01/2006
But we allow that the whole value of the means depends on their actual subservience to the end of religion; that consequently all these means, when separate from the end, are less than nothing, and vanity; that if they do not actually condu…
Nov/01/2006
What gives Wesley’s Methodism its distinctive identity? The answer is not simple. It is no one thing but a number of things, a set of theological affirmations, practices, and goals that were seen as essentially related. The elements that co…
Nov/01/2006
“Post-Nicene Fathers” refers to Patristic literature from the Council of Nicea (325 CE) until the close of the Patristic age (749 CE). It is a time when the church received legal status and enjoyed freedom of worship and even favors in the …
Apr/01/2006
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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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