Posts Tagged ‘Intro’

Hello, and welcome to July on Eschewmencial.

Every month we choose a new topic and present several different doctrinal perspectives on the same theme. We encourage debate and discussion of these ideas and desire to provide an open forum for such.

This month’s topic is the age old showdown between Faith and Works. Not to rub salt in old wounds, but this debate was one of the primary drivers of the reformation and the great church schism that has risen out of that event. It’s also been an ever present topic on Christianity Stackexchange. In fact this question and this question attempt to find the proof on each side of the issue.

A search through the scripture will also find what seem like mixed messages, including lines like “by grace you have been saved, through faith” (Eph 2:8) and “faith without deeds is useless.” (James 2:20) What conclusions and views will our author’s draw? Find out this month as we explore the centuries old debate of Salvation by Faith or Works.

• 7/2 Jon (Evangelical—Salvation is what God does for us)
• 7/9 Bruce (Arminian/Wesleyan – Running to Win the Prize)
• 7/16 Peter (Catholic – Faith, Works, God’s the Guy with Gun)
• 7/23 Wax (Reformed – Irresistible)
• 7/30 Jas 3.11 (Jasian – A Beautiful Partnership)

Again thanks for reading. This is Eschewmenical!

Every week millions of people gather, usually on Sunday (or Saturday, or maybe even another day), usually in the same place. What they do varies, but it usually consists of singing and then listening to someone talk for a bit. Sometimes they gather again midweek, sometimes they go every single day. It’s church, sometimes we go because we want to, sometimes we go because we need to, sometimes we don’t go at all. But how often do we actually think about what it is and why we go?

This month in Eschewmenical we are going to explore the question “What is the church?” This is a rather ponderous question and several facets likely deserve their own entire month of treatment on this blog. However, this month is the general overview.

The church is a relatively common topic on Christianity.SE with several tags devoted to it including “church”, “church-local”, and “church-universal” among others.

What exactly is the church and who it consists of, and how to “do” church are all up for debate in this month’s blog. This month’s contributors are:

• 5/7 Peter (Catholic—One, holy, catholic, apostolic)
• 5/14 Chaos Gamer (Berean—What churches everyday should be)
• 5/21 Jon (Evangelical—The Church struggle)
• 5/28 Bruce (United Methodist—Walking worthy of the vocation to which we have been called)

So Saturday or Sunday, traditional or modern, universal, local or visible, this month we ask “What is the church?”

Welcome to another month on Eschewmenical. This month’s topic is Easter. Culturally associated with eggs decorated lavishly in pastels, bunnies, chicks and delicious sugar coated marshmallows shaped like the aforementioned bunnies and chicks, Easter is the time we as Christians remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Easter is an odd holiday as the date that it is celebrated varies widely from year to year. The decision to move Easter was made out of an attempt to line the day up with the Jewish celebration of Passover. According to Wikipedia, it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere Source.

Celebrations of Easter range from the 50 day celebration of the Catholics to the almost complete ignoring of the day by people who consider it to be a continuation of a tradition of paganism.

We’ve handled several Easter questions on Christianity.StackExchange and covered a range of issues from how long Jesus was in the tomb to how we determine the date it’s celebrated.

This month’s authors and topics are:

• 4/2: Bruce Alderman (United Methodist—Holy Week: From Palm Sunday to Easter)
• 4/9: Jon Ericson (Evangelical—Easter as a historical event)
• 4/16 Peter Turner (Catholic—pro-Easter (as a 50 day celebration))
• 4/23: Michael Hollinger (aka Affable Geek) (Episcopalian — Why we need Good Friday)
• 4/30: Dan O’Day (The Eastern Perspective)

Please keep in mind that we are here in the spirit of Eschewmenism; we’ve agreed to disagree.

Welcome to Eschewmenical, the blog for Christianity.StackExchange.com. This is a blog where we will explore different doctrinal perspectives on a variety of topics. Rather than trying to reconcile those perspectives into a single theology we will present each perspective separately so that the reader may fairly evaluate each position.

We will devote each month to a topic and each week will offer a different doctrinal perspective on that topic. This month’s topic is Contraception. This is a rather on point subject as it has been the subject of much political debate in the United States recently. And has been a repeated topic around the Christianity StackExchange.

Christianity has a rich tradition of doctrinal diversity and disagreement and we are seeking to highlight some of that richness and celebrate the doctrinal diversity of our community. Our blog’s goal is not to try to reconcile the different views that exist between Christian groups, but to present several different points of view by each taking a different perspective on the topic. This month’s contributors are:

• 3/5: Jon Ericson (Evangelical—limited contraception within marriage)
• 3/12 Peter Turner (Catholic—Natural Family Planning, if necessary)
• 3/19: Bruce Alderman (United Methodist—Contraception as a tool for family planning)
• 3/26: Michael Hollinger (aka Affable Geek) (Episcopalian — Via Media – ‘The Middle Way’)

Please feel free to interact with our contributors through the blog comments, by asking questions on our main site or in our site’s  chat room.