Saturday Good Reads: Theology and Faith

Faith is one of main themes of this blog (I deliberately included it in the title in 2008 when I started it). And – no surprise – I read a fairly considerable number of blogs devoted to faith, theology, the church, and related subjects.

You shouldn’t have to look at this blog for very long to know that (1) I’m a Christian, (2) I’m more than likely of the conservative Christian persuasion, and (3) I’m more than likely to be found somewhere in the vicinity of the evangelical camp, although I took a different road than a lot of evangelical Baby Boomers and never embraced the “mega-church” concept.

The local church where my wife and I worship is Central Presbyterian Church in Clayton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. It’s a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) denomination, which traces its roots back to John Knox in Scotland and John Calvin in Geneva.

Yes, we are of the Reformed persuasion. I was raised in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, and its theology is not unlike that of the EPC churches. There are differences to be sure but I don’t find them to be large ones (theologians might disagree but I’m no theologian).

The blogs and web sites I consistently visit and read represent a rather eclectic group – Reformed, Baptist, Anglican, Catholic and Greek Orthodox. Here are a few of them; they don’t necessarily fall in what I would call the “popular faith” category but more in the “theology and faith” category.

Taylor Marshall at Canterbury Tales was an Episcopal priest before he converted to Catholicism. He lives with his family in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and is the author of The Crucified Rabbi and The Catholic Perspective on Paul.

Justin Taylor, the vice president of Editorial at Crossway Books, blogs at Between Two Worlds. He invariably has good posts on Bible study, commentaries, and even reflections on Christians in the business world.

Tim Challies is pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto. He blogs at Informing the Reforming, and is the author of The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion. (I blogged about this book yesterday and highly, highly recommend it.)

The John Piper Ministry maintains one of the most robust of Christian blogs, Desiring God, with four to six posts a day (sometimes more) by various members of the Piper staff. The ministry is located in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

Chaplain Mike is the chief blogger at Internet Monk, which is one of the oldest of Christian blogs, It was begun by Michael Spencer in 2000 and he managed it until his death from cancer just a few years ago. Chaplain Mike works with a hospice organization in central Indiana.

Matt Appling at The Church of No People is what he calls “bi-vocational.” That is, he’s a pastor of a house church and also teaches to help pay the bills. He is based in Kansas City.

The Scriptorium is the blog of the faculty of the Torrey Honors Institute in California. There are some 10 or so faculty members who post there.

Matthew Van Maastricht is a young (Reformed) minister who blogs at thealreadynotyet (that’s The Already Not Yet without spaces between the words). He pastors a small, inner city (mission) church in Milwaukee.

There are others I follow as well. So what about you? What are some of your favorite blogs or web sites for theology and faith?

Photograph: Westminster Abbey by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.