When a famous Christian dies, the whole world hears about it. But what about a young person cut off in his early years before any of his hopes and dreams and aspirations are fulfilled? Joshua John-Henry Hicks died on April 6, 2012 suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 27. Joshua was a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts who was studying to become ordained in ministry. He had a severe food allergy and this took his life. Despite his youth, his funeral service packed the church building with almost 800 people from all stages of his life.

Recently, a group of his friends got together at a meal to reminisce about his life. Here are some of the memories we shared. Joshua was unique because he would treat everyone as if he or she was the most important person in the world and he had all the time in the world to be with them. He appeared never to be in a hurry. As soon as he saw you, time stopped for him. He would look you in the eye, cock his head, and give you his gentle, inquiring, and expectant smile. Jin Sook shared, for example: “When I gardened, he would walk by, stop, and focus on me and say: ‘Hi! How are you doing, sister?’” Even if you did not see him first, he would stop and call you. Brendan explained: “I would be walking by and reading and he would drive by and say ‘Get in!’ so that we could chat, and then we would drive to lunch and we would get into a deep conversation.” Kris explained, “Joshua had the gift of pace.” FULL POST

a first century tomb at King David Hotel, Jerusalem, Israel

When I was young, my mother brought me to a protestant church in Santo Domingo. I remember, even before I attended "fun-to-learn" or kindergarten that I no longer wanted to hear in Sunday School only about Abraham and King David but I wanted to learn about Jesus because somehow there was something very special about Jesus. In high school, one early evening I opened the Bible to a gospel to read Jesus' words because, I thought, if only I could understand them I would grasp something special for my life, but at that moment Jesus' words were incomprehensible to me. In college, one beautiful morning when the sun illuminated all of nature I thought how tragic it would be if God did not exist, so I bowed down on my knees by my dormitory bed and asked God, "If you exist, show yourself to me." Only a few weeks later, another student invited me to attend a joint InterVarsity Christian Fellowship meeting of the Douglass and Rutgers student groups. At the last moment, she decided to go to the meeting with her boyfriend leaving me abandoned to go by myself. That night I sat in the campus bus alone, wondering why I was doing this, yet somehow in a bubble that surrounded me as I slowly crossed the desolate town of New Brunswick. When I arrived at Rutgers, the campus appeared deserted. I found my way to the classroom building. It too was deserted. Slowly I climbed the stairs going around and around up and up through empty hallway after hallway, wondering why I was doing this hopeless endeavor. Finally, at the top floor, I walked down a hallway, and opened a door, where a room full of believers in Jesus welcomed me enthusiastically. I realized, I was carried by the love of Jesus to find the love of Jesus in the love of his disciples, who genuinely cared for me. FULL POST

Micah Eglinton-Woods

Psalm 104:1-6, c. 2011 Micah Eglinton-Woods

Among the newest arrivals in the nursery of churches these days is The Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO). Its due date is April 1st, but we're already feeling kicks as it's readying itself to emerge. A first sign of life is its theology statement, already in several revisions and now being recommended as "essential tenets."[i]

As a theologian by trade, to me this is naturally of keen interest, so I skip right to the doctrine of God and am delighted to see a strong statement on the Trinity set off in bold letters: "With Christians everywhere, we worship the only true God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who is both one essence and three persons." That sounds great – and to this is added the welcome words, "The three persons are consubstantial with one another, being both coeternal, and coequal, such that there are not three gods, nor are there three parts of God, but rather three persons within the one Godhead."[ii] Here is the heart of Evangelical Christian confession: one true God (not three gods), eternally in three coequal and coeternal persons. That's what any centrist, orthodox, evangelical Christian denomination needs for a theological foundation– and we never have enough of these. So, welcome, ECO, our latest blessed event. FULL POST

I was born in the Dominican Republic (D.R.), but even though I have been a professor of New Testament for 40 years and I have traveled regularly back to the D. R., I had never taught the Bible there until last month when I had the opportunity to teach a class in Spanish on the biblical basis for women in ministry. For many years I had wanted to enter more into the Protestant (evangelical) world of this beautiful Spanish country and was able to appreciate not only its historical colonial setting, its lovely beaches, its familial setting, but also its thirst for theological engagement. The bishops themselves were with the Church of God of Prophecy and hailed from ten different Caribbean and Central American countries, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Belize, Panama, Guatemala, and also from Spain.

Welcome to our new blog: this is our first post. We hope to reflect an evangelical egalitarian view of scholarship wedded with action on topics of interest to CP readers. FULL POST