My story is told briefly and selectively. (A post office box is at the end of this post, if you wish to contribute to this teaching ministry.)
I have been part of the Renewal Movements since my conversion in the Jesus Movement in the 1970s at a little Assembly of God church in southern Oregon, USA, in my mid-teens. (See my post: What Are Renewal Movements in Christianity?). A friend invited me.
At my age and before the worldwide web, I knew very little about denominations. I did not fully understand, further, that I was part of the Jesus Movement. I just lived it. I was never part of the hippy-and-drug subculture (my dad fought in WWII, in the Pacific), but I saw firsthand the salvation and deliverance that came to the hippies.
I moved to Southern California to attend Melodyland School of Theology (long ago defunct), where I got a B.A. in Theology. I attended Melodyland Christian Center, for a few years, where numerous leaders from the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements were guest speakers. The church building was right across the street from Disneyland. (The MCC building, a theater in the round, was demolished long ago. Disneyland had purchased the property.)
Further, a group of students and I sometimes piled into a car and went to the Friday night (or Saturday night?) concerts at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, where innovative Christian rock music was being introduced to churches for the first time. I seem to recall that the electric guitar made its first appearance in church services then. It was exciting to be at the hub of the overlapping Charismatic Renewal and the Jesus Movement.
After I graduated from MST, I went to Paris, France, to do missions, where I helped a French Baptist church, pastored at that time by Jules Thobois, and St. Michael’s Anglican church, Paris, pastored at that time by Englishman Rev. Peter Sertin. Both were part of the Charismatic Renewal but are now deceased. While spending sixteen fun and productive months in Paris, I realized, when talking with Europeans, who did not know the Bible, that I could not communicate with them about life or history or complex issues, other than by that ancient book. There was a mutual impasse. I was much too uneducated. I had to close the gap.
I returned to Southern California, but soon went to Lubbock, Texas, to attend Texas Tech University and got a B.S. in Education at this state university, which would not go defunct. I then went back to Southern California and earned an M.A. in Religion at Vanguard University of Southern California (then called Southern California College).
From there I earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at UC Riverside (1994 and see my dissertation here), majoring in Religious Studies and Classical and Hellenistic Greek, in conjunction with the Classics Department at UC Irvine and the History and Classics Departments at UCLA, where I took about ten or so graduate Greek classes. I also took senior-level classical Greek classes at UC Riverside, my home campus in the UC system. I specialized in early Christianity at UCLA and in the Religion Department at UCR, at that time only an undergraduate program. In 1997, Hendrickson published my dissertation: Women, Class, and Society in Early Christianity: Models from Luke-Acts (now out of print).
In graduate school: I also took critical literary theory in several seminars, reading Derrida and Barthes and Foucault and others. I have long ago left this topic behind, except in a few posts, where I criticize their views.
I don’t insist on my title (doctor). In Latin it just means “teacher.” I use it to signal unwary readers around the globe that I can do careful research and am not outlandish. Credentials still matter in the modern world and with the onslaught of the worldwide web and countless websites and video channels.
My teaching career: as it happened, I have become a generalist. I have taught basic philosophy and ethics, world literature, Shakespeare, Humanities I and II, world religions, and basic writing at various community colleges and once in a while at a university. I cannot claim that I am a Grand Expert in these various fields, but I worked hard and learned a lot. I share my notes on this website.
I have written over 600 (substantial) articles, most of which have been posted at my first and now defunct website Live as Free People. Many of them had also been posted first at American Thinker. I have imported many of them into my new website, here.
After 9/11, I read the Quran and a few Islamic traditions, and then, feeling nudged by the Spirit, I spent countless hours in study and began to write my findings in articles, from 2004 to 2007, and revised the ones on sharia in 2012. They are hard-hitting but truthful because this is online writing. People had to be warned. I also share those posts with you.
Now let’s transition to my ministry today. Here’s one of my life verses, which describes who I am by God’s call on my life:
God has placed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers … (1 Cor. 12:28, my translation).
As of this writing, I’m the third guy. That’s it. My personal motto:
I learn; therefore, I teach.
The next equation sums up my life in Christ and study of Scripture:
Perpetual Learner = Perpetual Disciple ….
Though I have a PhD, I’m a perpetual student, not a scholar. Maybe it is best to say that I can be placed between an advanced student and a scholar. I’m in “No Man’s Land.”
Why do I translate and comment on the NT? Just to add another translation? No. I learn; therefore I teach. Learning and teaching. That’s it, and in that order. I don’t plan on printing my translation in a book. Translations by one person seem risky (to me, at least), so I’ll keep mine online.
I don’t consider myself a top-level scholar. These classes of men and women are far ahead of me:
Men and women who:
1.. Put together thick lexicons
2.. Put together the Greek New Testament
3.. Write thick Greek grammar textbooks
4.. Write grammar commentaries on each book and each word in the NT (thanks, Baylor University, for those publications!)
5.. Write printed commentaries on the NT, book by book, and refer to the original languages in a scholarly way
6.. Write thick systematic theology books, sometimes many volumes
They’re the real scholars. I depend on all of them. I’m somewhere in the seventh class, if that. I am a perpetual student of theology and the Bible, not a professional theologian or a professional NT or OT scholar.
This is not false modesty.
Therefore, most of my posts are polished drafts, not my final ones. I sometimes go back and update them, when I learn something more biblically and theologically sound.
Time to wrap this up.
My full name is James Malcolm Arlandson, and my nickname is Jim. Please put the accent on the first syllable in my last name (pronounced: AR-lund-sun). I go regularly to a contemporary, small church, which is part of the Renewal Movement, in Southern California.
Update: The Charismatic Movement has become outlandish and is dying, and it needs to die (as I see things). I accept R. T. Kendall’s thesis that the whole movement is Ishmael. We are still waiting for a better Global Revival or Global Great Awakening (= Isaac).
I have to use the term “charismatic” because it is biblical (charismata is Greek plural for charisma or “gift”), I still believe in the charismata of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 and Romans 12:6-8, and elsewhere, because believing in them is biblical. Right now there is no other term than charismatic, until God sends another global revival and church historians (plural) decide on another term. So I’m stuck with it, but under mild protest.
Gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 and 12:28
Gifts of the Spirit in Romans 12:6-8
I still go to a church that also believes in the gifts, though many of the ones listed in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 seem to be nonexistent, sadly.
If you need a category for me, I am a Jesus follower, translator and commentator (exegete) and teacher and essayist, with the degrees of BA, BS, MA, and PhD.
I hope you’ll enjoy the site and learn from it as much as I am learning.
Contact me:
jamesmarlandson[@]hotmail[.][com]
Please delete the brackets and keep the standard email address to contact me.
If you wish to contribute to this teaching ministry, here is the address:
James M. Arlandson (write check out to this name)
P.O. Box 56236
Riverside, California 92517-1136
RELATED
About the Site (where I very briefly lay out its purpose)
Statements of Faith: Apostles Creed and NAE
Supplemental Statements of Faith: Two Historic Creeds
Authority and Inerrancy of the Bible (my view of Scripture)
What Are Renewal Movements in Christianity?
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 