Dr Paul Allen

The descent clause in both the Apostle’s Creed and the Athanasian Creed declares that after being crucified, Jesus descended into the realm of the dead, from which he ascended on that first Easter morning . While the descent clause has fallen on hard times recently—well, ever since Calvin rejected it as a Roman Catholic hangover I suppose—I still hold to it . I think it represents biblical teaching, well attested in church history, and more importantly, because it intersects with so many other areas of theology, it’s probably best not to tinker with it. It is the kind of theological thread that when you pull it in one place, you find it snags in so many other unexpected places. This Easter, in particular, I was reminded of the importance of the doctrine of the descent of Christ . Of all Holy Saturdays I’ve experienced, this was the one closest to what the disciples went through on that first Saturday after the crucifixion. They were in lockdown mode . It was the Sabbat...

Map of Iraq, where Yahya ibn Umar conducted his revolt (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) When the world’s attention shifted to Ukraine and Israel last week, the Islamic leaders in Iraq capitalized on the distraction. For weeks the functional government in central Iraq ( ISIS ) had told Christians they had to make one of four choices by this past Saturday: forfeit thier property as a “Christian” tax, convert to Islam , leave, or die. But a week ago ISIS revised their list, and said paying the “tax” was no longer an option. When Friday came around, residents awoke to an Arabic “N” spray-painted on the houses, property, and farms of all suspected Christians. The government had come during the night to demonstrate that they knew who the Christians were, and the spray-painted N’s were a not-so-subtle reminder that the deadline to convert, flee, or die was only 24 hours away. Why the N? Because in Arabic Christians are often simply called Nazarenes . And when this week began, so did the fl...

Sunday Morning (Photo credit: jspaw ) Let's talk about church members who attend their home church with great irregularity. These aren’t unchurched folks, or de- churched , or under-churched. They are semi-churched. They show up some of the time, but not every week. They are on again/off again, in and out, here on Sunday and gone for two. That’s the scandal of the semi-churched. In fact, Thom Rainer argues that the number one reason for the decline in church attendance is that church members don’t go to church as often as they used to. We’ve had Christmas and Easter Christians for probably as long as we’ve had Christmas and Easter. Some people will always be intermittent with their church attendance. We're not talking about nominal Christians who wander into church once or twice a year. We're talking about people who went through the trouble of joining a church, have no particular beef with the church, and still only darken its doors once or twice a month. If ther...

A Ten Commandments monument which includes the command to "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy". (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) “Remember the Sabbath day , to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8 Let’s not dictate Sabbath observance today. The point of the Sabbath is a dress rehearsal for a future eternity of glad rest in God . So, for now, every one of us can work out the details personally. But in our frantic modern world, the Sabbath offers wisdom that has lasted since the beginning ( Genesis 2:2-3 ). It is not written on our calendars as much as we are built into its calendar. It seems to be part of the God-created rhythm for weekly human flourishing . If we did set apart one day each week for rejuvenation in God, we would immediately add to every year over seven weeks of vacation. And not for doing nothing but for worship, for friends, for mercy, for an afternoon nap, for reading and thinking, for lingering around the dinner table and sharing good jokes and tender...