Christian hedonism

“Who are we?” “GCPC.” “Who are we?!” “GCPC!” “WHO ARE WE??” “GCPC!!!” This call-and-response can be heard at the end of every home football game, on the baseball field late on Monday nights, on the Saint Lawrence Family Field every Tuesday and Thursday, every All College Hike, and every Homecoming Pep Rally. What is this cry, you might ask? It is the cry of one of the most important and well-loved families on campus. It is the solidarity cry of the Greenville College Panther Corps…

How bad do you want it? A cry for justice in an unjust world. Psalm 35 Debra Sanders Clark Have you ever been wrongly accused of something? Better yet have you ever made mistakes? We all have! God did not create us perfect although he made us perfectly in his image. We are like him, but we have faults. David sinned and made mistakes just like all of us. But he recognized God in the midst of his troubles. He knew that without God he would perish. Therefore, he chased after him. He chased…

are two children who were the children of serpent and woman after Adam rebelled God. Therefore, if other denominations interpret God’s word literally and historically, it is hard to deny God chose only some not whole. On the other hand, why some Christian and Catholic want to believe that our Lord sacrificed Himself for all of us? I think that their thinking might come from ‘affection’. From our sight as a man, believers and non-believers have no any difference at all; both of us born by God’s…

of all good works and all holiness.” These two sermons are an echo of the theology discussed in the earlier weeks of this course. I had a particular fascination with the final sermon from this week as Wesley discussed his definition of an almost Christian. This was my first encounter with Wesley’s outlook on other ethnic groups. Although his terminology was archaic and insensitive by today’s standards, the impression I received from Wesley was that of respect for the “common heathens” as he used…

Suffering, as defined in the dictionary, is “the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.” It involves an experience of unpleasantness and a significant amount of pain. More often than not, we associate suffering with evil (although they are distinct) due to our belief that committing transgressions will possibly have unpleasant consequences that are in line with these wrongdoings. However, suffering is not only limited to those have a high tendency to tolerate evil. People who have the…

The last supper is one of the most iconic biblical moments. While dining during the jewish holiday of passover, he prophesies that one of his disciples will betray him. This comes true and the most defining part of christianity takes place, the crucifixion. Three days later he returns to life. The crucifixion marks a point where Jesus turns from man to legend, and the last supper the final moments of his mortality. While the Last Suppers painted by Leonardo and Tintoretto take place at the same…

Church is one of the very few churches left in New York that is from the Byzantine era. The spiritual heritage and practices presented in this Byzantine Catholic Church originated from the Christian Church in the Byzantine Empire. Byzantine Catholics are followers of Jesus Christ and are descendants of Christians…

Jim Shaddix (M.Div., Southwestern; D.min., Southwestern; and PhD., New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) is a preaching professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Shaddix also serves as the Pastor of Teaching and Training at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. Shaddix desired to develop a theology for expository preaching. Before he began his argument, he expressed some basic assumptions: God has spoken, and contained within the Scriptures are these words.…

John Wesley spent the greater portion of his life developing an ordo salutis, or order of salvation. While some aspects of his theory of salvation were similar to that of other major denominations of his day (i.e., Lutheran, Catholic), Wesley’s order of salvation was unique. Where most soteriology almost ignored the third person of the Trinity, much of Wesley’s salvation theory and practice emphasized the Holy Spirit. Another unique aspect was the progression a person would take through each…

Mormons, believe the same doctrines as Christianity, but they do not call themselves Catholic or Protestant (http://www.mormonnewsroom.org). Through his creation of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith started a religion that clarified the axioms of the Christian faith by basing the Church solely on those principles. In the spring of 1820, 14-year-old Joseph Smith prayed to God and had his first vision of God and Jesus Christ. During this vision, Joseph Smith “saw two Personages,…