I speak and write in various settings in church and academy, and for general audiences.
Here are a few sermons, addresses, articles, blogs, podcasts, public lectures, and so on.
Convocation Address and Honorary Degree
It was my honour to speak at the Spring Convocation of Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, on May 7 2022 . . .
Public Lecture (video),“You Have Never Talked to a Mere Mortal”: The Implications of a “Negative” Theological Anthropology
I gave an online evening public lecture at Regent College, exploring modern anthropology (especially with its “calculating spirit”) and comparing this with an earlier Christian understanding in which there is such depth to human beings that we may never know another fully or exhaustively.
Video Podcast with Steve Bell: “Dark Night of the Soul”
Steve and I chatted for an hour about John of the Cross and his poem, “Dark Night of the Soul.”
Singing to the Risen Son: A History of Christian Hymns
I wrote up a public lecture I have sometimes given on the history of Christian hymn-singing. My theme is from the early second century, when the Roman governor Pliny the Younger described a group of Christians singing “a hymn to Christ as to a god.”
J.I. Packer Was the Robin Hood of Evangelicalism: Christianity Today
J.I.P. (1926-2020). I wrote a piece for Christianity Today on Jim Packer’s legacy for evangelicalism. The caricatures provided by my friend and colleague Phil Long are outstanding—and capture JIP perfectly.
Coronavirus and the Communion of the Saints
An article I wrote on the airplane, coming home from England when pandemic began, reflecting on the Christian experience of communicable disease through history.
Was He Too Prone to Wander?
An article I wrote on the hymnwriter, Robert Robinson, who wrote, “Come Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing.”
Can you be good without God? Evangelicals and the Rise of Natural Ethics (video)
A public lecture I gave at Baylor University on the early evangelical response to eighteenth-century law and moral philosophy
Public Lecture on Evangelicals and the Rise of Science: Lanier Theological Library (video)
I was honoured to be the fiftieth Lanier Theological Library lecturer and spoke about the reception of science in the years after Isaac Newton. Science was a cause for “wonder, love, and praise” among the early evangelicals.
“At Any Price Give Me the Book of God!”: Devotional Intent and Bible Reading for the Early Evangelicals (video)
A conference paper of evangelicals and the bible in the age of the so-called “eclipse of biblical narrative.” Andrew Fuller Center, Southern Seminary.