Mutemath, John, and Empire

I'm not sure if anyone remember the old band Earthsuit, they broke up and some of the members reformed into my favorite band now called Mutemath. Mutemath is getting ready to release their 2nd full album. To help get things started they had a VIP listening party tour which started in Seattle last night. My friend Mike was kind enough to invite me along to the listening party, which was the first in the country. I got to hear the new album Armistice in its entirety. Let me tell you Mutemath fans, its definitely Mutemath, but completely new and fresh. You're in for a treat. Track 3, Clipping was almost unanimously the group's favorite. The end track Burden was another standout. It had great movement and pacing throughout the song. There are some great opportunities in the song for a group drum solo. If anyone has been to a live show you'll know what I'm talking about. I'm really looking forward to the album.

I'm hoping to blog some stuff on the Gospel of John here soon. I'd love some reading recommendation for my next book on the Gospel of John. Currently I'm finishing up Warren Carter's John and Empire and it's thought provoking. The good folks at T & T Clark were kind enough to send a review copy along. I'll be sending a review into the Princeton Theological Journal and eventually I'll try to do a chapter by chapter review here. It's a fantastic read. I'm finding I'm moving slower through it than anticipated because there is so much fantastic material to soak up.

Seminary And Scholarship

I hate applying for scholarships. How many times can you write the same 1,000 word essay? And yet, somehow, each scholarship seems to demand a new, fresh essay. Simply repurposing an already written essay never works, at least not without twice as much effort as a fresh essay would require. You would think that there are only so many ways to ask the same question, and yet every scholarship committee seems to find their own unique twist. Then there’s the word limit. “In one thousand words sum up the entire Christian faith being sure to touch on all major aspects of Christology, ecclesiology, soteriology, epistemology, history, exegesis, worship, Luther, Calvin, Augustine, and Barth. Make sure to clearly articulate your call while especially highlighting how you plan to achieve ecumenical unity, and world peace.”

The other problem is the specificity of most of the scholarships out there for Seminary. Unless you are a Pilipino male, who tragically lost your right knee cap in an animal stampede, currently living in Loving County Texas, and planning on serving the Presbyterian Church in Alaska for 15 years, there really aren’t many scholarships you can even apply for, let along win.

Luckily for you, once you enter seminary, you’ll find that 90 percent of the scholarships you don’t even qualify for and the other 10 percent that you do qualify for require you to write one of those dreaded essays mentioned above. Luckily the folks at Logos Bible software have been kind enough to start a scholarship for Seminarians easy to apply for. It took me no longer than 15 minutes.

Seminary Scholarship