Dale M. Coulter

I don’t always compose follow-up posts, but, in this case, I think further elaboration and clarification are in order. In my “qualified defense” of therapeutic Christianity, I utilized Christian Smith’s and Melinda Denton’s 2005 book Soul Searching to highlight the debates . . . . Continue Reading »

Over the course of blogging I have discovered that words can be taken in all kinds of ways, many of which I did not intend. While this is the case with all writing, it takes on a particular vigor in the virtual world. Reader-response is alive and well in the blogosphere. Part of this is no doubt due . . . . Continue Reading »

In 2005 Christian Smith and Melinda Denton published a study of American teenagers in which they offered a “conjecture” that the dominant religion among adolescents was “moralistic therapeutic deism” (MTD). Suggesting that the MTD creed was operative among mainline and . . . . Continue Reading »

When Francis of Assisi orchestrated the first crèche in Greccio on Christmas Eve in 1223 with its scene of infant child surrounded by living animals, the intention was to humanize the birth of the messiah and so remind medieval Christians how near this God was. As Francis states, “I wish . . . . Continue Reading »

During my doctoral program at Oxford, my wife and I had the good fortune of attending a wonderful Anglican church. Located just across from Christ Church, St. Aldate’s has a history going back to the twelfth century and St. Frideswide, which spoke to me given that I was writing on the canons . . . . Continue Reading »

Three events this past fall suggest the need to grapple with the nature of populism again, especially religious populism and its relationship to renewal and the life of the mind. While each of these events deal with different slices of Christianity (Pentecostal, Evangelical, and Catholic), they all . . . . Continue Reading »

I was recently reminded of the ongoing problems with a historical paradigm that has been with us since the Jazz Age, when fundamentalist Baptists and Presbyterians in largely northern denominations broke with modernist Baptists and Presbyterians. Given this historical paradigm, Protestantism tends . . . . Continue Reading »

Advent evokes struggle, the struggle to let in the light and dispel the darkness. Preparing the way of the Lord is not a passive enterprise, but a peregrination to break through the veil with prayers, praises, and lamentations so that the rays of righteousness may peer over the horizon igniting the . . . . Continue Reading »

When Cardinal Jorge Borgoglio became Francis there was a ripple of excitement that ran through parts of the Pentecostal community. This excitement was related to then Cardinal Borgoglio’s actions in Argentina as represented in the picture of prayers being offered for him by Raniero . . . . Continue Reading »

I’ve always been struck by the ascription of philanthropia to God in Titus 3:4. God is a lover of humanity. Philanthropia is also closely associated with humanitas , as Jerome understood when he employed the Latin term in his translation of the verse. God’s love for humanity is an . . . . Continue Reading »