What's up

So here I am up in Philly. Right now I'm sitting in my room in the mansion after having just been to a pretty good church. It's called City Church and it's downtown by UPenn. It's a PCA church plant (planted by a guy who used to be on staff at Redeemer in NYC) that's been around for about 3 years. What did I like about it. . . . . it had a strong liturgy which was really nice in contrast to the community church type of service I went to last week. They have a philosophy professor in the congregation who writes the liturgy each week based on what scripture they're using. It's based off of the structure that the Anglican church uses, but since they don't go by the church calendar they decided to tailor the liturgy a little more for their own congregation. Another thing I liked was the music. I know, kind of shallow, but the music was really good. They had a small jazz band (upright bass, guitar, drums) playing rearranged hymns and they just sounded good and fresh. It's nice to hear something besides Passion-style or singer-songwriter-style worship music. The church is a little far from school (about a 30 minute drive) but I was able to talk to the pastor after the service and he let me know that there's a small group that meets about 15 minutes from my place and the pastor comes out to our area about once every other week to have lunch with the people in this area of town. I'm pumped about going back next week and getting more of a feel for what the church is like from week to week.

In other news, I could really use some prayer about school. I think most of you heard me talk about the controversy with the professor that just got fired from the school a few months ago. Well, that has turned out to be a bigger deal than I even thought it was going to be. A couple of professors left after last year because they didn't like the direction the school was heading in and they've replaced them with guys who are definitely "company men". My New Testament Intro prof is one of those guys. In our first class he told us that he'd help us figure out which of the publishing houses were not worth our time and which ones had left orthodoxy (including Eerdmans, for publishing books with "Catholic sympathies"). From what I've heard around campus, a few more professors are planning on leaving in the next year or two (the professors that are leaving are the ones with PhDs from Harvard, Princeton, U of Chicago, etc and the ones that are coming in are guys who got their PhDs--if they have one--from this school mostly), and a handful of members of the board of trustees left after the prof was fired (I'm not using names or even the name of my school b/c there were a couple incidents last year where students who wrote about what was going on at the school on their blogs were called in and told to stop disrespecting the adminstration's authority or else; I don't think they would do that to me for just writing this, but the thought that someone could search the internet and find out that I was talking about the situation is a little disconcerting). The adminstration has been pretty triumphalist so far, basically saying at our convocation "People said if we got rid of that professor, even if it was to protect our standards, that our school wouldn't survive. Well, we lost a lot of money and some respect, but we're still here and we're setting a new theological direction for the school that will be nice and conservative. If anyone doesn't like it, then they can go somewhere else." After the prof was fired all but two of the PhD students at the school left to go to other schools. People who are in there last year here are saying that the school is in the process of becoming a completely different place, one that is more devoted to being conservative and Reformed than it is devoted to good and progressive scholarship for the glory of God. Long story not-so-short, I'm having a really hard time deciding whether or not to stay up here past this semester. I already know that if I knew before what I know now, I wouldn't have come here in the first place. I'm just not really sure where else I would go to get a good, rigorous education and also a place that is actively seeking to stay within a general label of orthodoxy.

Anyway, I'm having a tough time trying to figure out what to do. Stay for the whole year? Most places I would transfer would only take about one semester worth of credits from another school. What would I do if I left school at the end of this semester? I think it might be tough to transfer somewhere for next semester so I'd have to wait until next fall. I could use some prayer and/or advice if you've got any.

Despite all of that, I've met some really great people up here and it's been fun being back in classes and learning things with a group of people instead of just myself.

Jeremy, I like the new header.

Chris, any news about the job?

Lastly, here's a couple of links about the controversy at school:
--An interview with the professor who was fired (he actually agreed to cancel his tenured position and the school agreed to pay him two years' salary) on a local radio show: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7789c5a104bea4a0d2db6fb9a8902bda
--A page with pretty much everything available on the internet about the controversy (this is one of the sites that got the author in trouble): Art's blog -- the blog itself is really good as well if you're looking for another one to get addicted to.