BC2AD On Target For Starting Jan 5, 2010!

Our new cycle of BC2AD begins soon at Grace Community Church in Auburn, WA.

Though we didn't formally hold the BC2AD course in 2009, I am never mentally far away from the material. Since BC2AD covers the entire Bible and Christian History, all the other courses I teach are in a sense segments of BC2AD. The beauty of this is that whatever I teach, and whatever I research, eventually feeds into the BC2AD material. BC2AD students benefit from the "cream" of my ongoing studies.

So, what have I been working on lately? Well, most recently I've been doing major research on how the early severing of the Church from all things Jewish (by AD 160), and the prevalence of Mystery Religions in the early Christian centuries, shaped the church Fathers' understanding of Christian baptism. Losing touch with the Hebraic background of Christian baptism, while also thinking in the mental categories of the magic-infused worldview of Hellenism, led the Fathers rapidly into a sacramental understanding of baptism, according to which water baptism actually regenerates the believer. Some Christian denominations have not yet recovered from the early misconceptions of the Fathers, but an understanding of the Ante-Nicene evolution of Christian doctrine can help us avoid false interpretations of Scripture today!