Parchment & Pen Blog

Are you a Fundamentalist, Emerger, Evangelical, or Liberal. Click on this picture and post your results here. (Or, in the words of Biff Tannen—Chicken?). (P.S. I don’t want to hear anything about how we should not label ourselves! Lighten up!) (P.P.S. Yes, you do have to have a Facebook account. Quit putting it off, you [...]

As many of you probably know, I am finishing up my first year of the ThM program at Dallas Theological Seminary.  It has been a wonderful experience overall, yet filled with a few holes of personal challenges and discouragements.  But these cannot be compare with the glory of attending seminary and I am very delighted [...]

This is the final installment of my Sola Scriptura series. The previous posts (post crash) can be found here. Or you can download entire series in rough PDF. UPDATE: I have already deleted about 10 comments today. Please don’t just spam with quotes from the church fathers. Had the poster who did read the entire [...]

As many of you know, my family and I moved to Norman, Oklahoma, a year and a half ago primarily due to my mother’s illness. Previously, we lived in Frisco, Texas, where I was a pastor at Stonebriar Community Church for six years. We all loved the church. We loved the people, the commitment to [...]

The Theology Program: Spring (2) 2009 Semester Please help spread the word. Post on your site. (See graphics below) Please note, this is online students only. To find more about the online program, go here. Everyone is welcome to join! Scholarships are available. Contact carrie@reclaimingthemind.org to request. Bibliology & Hermeneutics Instructor: C. Michael Patton ThM. [...]

1. Do not use the blog to promote yourself, as your surrogate blog, or as an advertisement. I am sure you are interesting and have some really nice things to say, but you can get your own blog. 2. Do not call authors out for debate. You must count the cost (Lk. 14:31). You don’t [...]

Ok, not the real John Rylands (P52), but a facsimile. Use this collectors item for your library, office, school, or to aid you in teaching theology and the Bible. You won’t find these any where else. And to top it all of, you support Reclaiming the Mind Ministries when you purchase one (or two, or [...]

I argued in the previous post that big words are often necessary to communicate particular concepts. I also argued that language, being created by God, is the primary way that he has designed for communication. Big words are not necessarily long or hard to pronounce, but they are words that are technical and precise in [...]

My two year old son Zach has just entered that stage where he says a new word or phrase just about every day. It is wonderful to watch, listen, and laugh. The other day he said “Batman” perfectly. I was so excited. I assured my wife (even though I am the world’s biggest superhero fan) [...]

I would love to see it. You think that I get in trouble? Title of Martin Luther’s Post: “Sin Boldly” Maybe that would be the title of his blog. Maybe that would be a post. One thing is for certain—Luther was a blogger before blogging was cool. As you know, in blogging, one must continually [...]

Welcome to the blog. I, Michael Patton, am the primary contributor to this blog. But you can also expect posts from my fellow bloggers Dan Wallace, Paul Copan, Lisa Robinson, and Robert Bowman Jr. Our blog is Evangelical and our purpose is content oriented. Hopefully we can write blogs that educate, update, and make people [...]

Thomas Nagel, an atheist philosopher at New York University said something very revealing in his book The Last Word: In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. [...]