Parchment & Pen Blog

Daniel Camacho (right) is 17 years old and a Junior in High School. He lives on Long Island, New York and aspires to be a Christian Philosopher/Theologian. I became acquainted with him this year, but when he joined Theologica I really became impressed. He wrote a blog post called “Why I Closed the Oprah Post After 224 Comments” that was [...]

Being in ministry—being in theological ministry—the passions run high. You are going to say some wrong things and you are going to have some wrong things said about you. Such is ministry. One needs to develop some thick skin if they seek to surf these waters. As a consequence of being misunderstood, you get mislabeled. [...]

“If it ain’t in the Bible, I don’t believe it.” Have you ever heard said that? How about this one: “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” You might have that bumper sticker. Why not? Doesn’t this represent the glory of the Protestant Reformation’s elevation of Scripture to a position of the [...]

Lisa Robinson over at Theologica has written a great post as a former Pentecostal I appreciate, considering my last post on conversionism, how she approached this with grace and tact. (I have posted this without her knowledge, but she is a friend and I am sure she wouldn’t mind.) I am not a Pentecostal/Charismatic. I [...]

In the last post on this series I discussed why people leave Christianity, focusing on intellectual reasons. This post will focus on theological reasons why people leave Christianity. Let me quickly remind you of some important prerequisites to understanding where I am coming from and where I am not coming from. I am talking about people [...]

From Daniel Eaton at Theologica: I know this is a touchy subject (no pun intended), but are Christians, as a whole, sexually oppressed? Recently, I came across this article on an Apologetics news feed that I watch and most of what is in this blog post is from some posts on the topic that I [...]

Spending another week on Patmos has been a great joy. It has occurred to me that I have not given you much of a detailed look at what it’s like to spend a day here, though. We walk up to the monastery after we park our car about 400 yards downhill. We’re all dressed in [...]

“Converstionism.” This is one of the few marks of Evangelicalism spoken of by Evangelical historian Mark Noll. Evangelicals believe that people must experience a sincere personal conversion to Jesus Christ. This is a hallmark of Christianity—to be a convert. Please understand that what follows in no way detracts from this. Conversionism is essential to Evangelicalism. [...]