John Franke, in his new and exciting book
Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth (Living Theology)
is mapping the plural nature of truth in the Christian faith.
His concern in chp 4 is how the diversity of the past and the present impact the church today -- the local church -- your local church.
He begins by sketching the idea that God's intent is to form a community and the community of today only partially realizes that eschatological community. These communities are varied so they develop varied traditions.
John Franke, in his new and exciting book
Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth (Living Theology)
takes on the central issue of our age: the plurality of truth.
It doesn't take long in this world to realize that most people in this world don't believe what "I"/"We" believe.
Some, of course, opt for cultural relativism, that "you have your truth and I have mine." Truth is, in other words, purely local, and irreconciliable, and pluralistic and this is the postmodern condition. Furthermore, many would say all truth claims are interpretation -- and we can't penetrate behind the veil of interpretation. That is, the truth is that there is no Truth.
Perhaps the central issue for the emerging movement is the issue of truth, and at the core of the issue is what
John Franke, in his new and exciting book
Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth (Living Theology)
, calls "the sheer, existential reality of Christian plurality" (3).
Emerging folks are often asked "Do you believe in truth?" and John's book addresses that question. Those who have criticized the emerging folks for their stance on truth are obligated to listen to John's voice. He represents the best among the emerging voices.
Here's one way that many of us believe has to be dealt with: Which truth? or Whose truth? The Reformed, the Lutheran, the Catholic, the Orthodox, the low-church evangelical?
More: "If the Bible is the Word of God ... and if God gives liberally to those who ask, and if the Holy Spirit is at work guiding the church into all truth, how are we to account for and make sense of the plurality of the church?" (6). These differences are over important matters and they can't be denied, and anyone who cares about truth must deal with plurality. John believes in the inspiration of Scripture, the generosity of God in providing wisdom and in the guidance of the Spirit and in the plurality of truth. How so?
I will return to consider the next chapters of Conway Morris's book Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe
next week. Today I would like to take a brief detour and consider another question.
Many authors - Dawkins and others - have made popular the idea that religion, belief in God, and morality, among other things are either natural consequences or by-products of survival of the fittest and the preservation of the Selfish Gene. Religion has a purely natural explanation. An article a year or so ago in The New Scientist asserted Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests - described the development of a computer program to simulate and thus explain the development of religion.
In his chapter on The Roots of Religion in The God Delusion
Dawkins writes:
Knowing that we are products of Darwinian evolution, we should ask what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection originally favored the impulse to religion. The question gains urgency from standard Darwinian considerations of economy. Religion is so wasteful, so extravagant; and Darwinian selection habitually targets and eliminates waste. (p. 163)
and later in the chapter he gives his own view - religion is a by-product.
Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival... But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable byproduct is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses. (p. 176)
What role if any does evolution play in the development of religion?
Once again, Mary Veeneman, professor in theology at North Park
University, steps up to guide us into understanding Pope Benedict XVI's
most recent statement. This is the second of a two-part post.Benedict XVI's encyclical
Caritas in Veritate is the latest document in the corpus of
Catholic Social Teaching, as we have been discussing.
One of the more frustrating aspects of working on CST,
though, is that different groups will choose to emphasize different elements of
CST.
There are some that want to
point to encyclicals like
Humane Vitae and
Evangelium Vitae, which condemn
contraception, abortion and euthanasia and discuss the problems of the culture
of death as the highest priorities of CST.
There are others, who may be even more numerous, who want to
consider CST's positions on economics and care for the poor as the most
important priorities.
This is frequent
enough that some of the most commonly used compilations of CST documents omit
Humane Vitae and
Evangelium Vitae even though they certainly contain some of the
Church's social teachings.
What does this new statement by the Pope say to evangelicals? How might we receive and appropriate some of the teachings in this encyclical? If we sought to apply Caritas in Veritate's statements about
evangelization how might our own evangelism look different? Are we consistently pro life?
It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our "narrative" of God? What are the narratives that...
Once again, Mary Veeneman, professor in theology at North Park University, steps up to guide us into understanding Pope Benedict XVI's most recent statement. This is a two-part post and tomorrow Mary will explore the significance of this new statement....
It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our "narrative" of God? What are the narratives that hinder...
It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our "narrative" of God? What are the narratives that...
It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our "narrative" of God?James Bryan Smith, in The Good...
It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our "narrative" of God? Is our narrative one of...
It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God. What is our "narrative" of God?James Bryan Smith, in The Good...
It all begins with God -- what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. It begins with God.James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love...
Long ago an English writer announced that our God was too small -- and he then listed the ways that Christians generally have bad ideas about God.James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With...
A wonderful German scholar once said, "The first and the final thought of Jesus was thought about God." (I translate.) That theologian, Adolf Schlatter, gets it exactly right: what you think of God matters most. So I want to begin...
For those who don't know this, this post is written by our friend "RJS," a professor in the sciences at a leading American university. She regularly posts here about issues intersecting science and faith.Last week in A Fine Tuned...
Chapter eight of Alister McGrath's new book A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology deals with the views of Augustine of Hippo on creation. Augustine and the relationship of Augustinian thought to evolution and Darwinian natural...
The first section of Alister McGrath's new book A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology deals with his vision of a Trinitarian natural theology. As is typical in almost anything by McGrath the section rambles...
On Fridays we often post material from our readers, and this is the last on my recent submissions. So, if you have something you think would fit on this blog, send it in ... This one is from Matt Edwards.From...
Andrew Marin has earned the right to be heard about gays and the Church. Why? His book, Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation With the Gay Community , tells the story. That subtitle is what is needed next, and...
The editors of Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe finish the book off with an epilogue that reflects on heresy and orthodoxy, and it's worth a good read. It will do well to...
I got this set of questions from a reader at the end of our series on "Our Collective Faith," a series that discussed a book about heresies and how to avoid them. Here is the set of questions, and I've...
The final chp of Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe is an odd one, but all the better for its oddity. The chp is written by Janet Martin Soskice, a Roman Catholic and...
This week's Friday is for Friends comes from Derek Leman, a messianic rabbi (or a messianic pastor for some of us). I am finding that his questions are haunting more and more of us these days, and I hope we...
Every now and then, but not very often, someone writes a book that is a once-in-a-lifetime publication. Wow! Everett Ferguson has just given us an exhaustive study of baptism in the first five centuries: Baptism in the Early Church: History,...
The 11th chp of Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe introduced me to a heresy I had never heard of: the heresy of the Free Spirit. The author of the chp is Denys...
A book we've been discussing about heresies brings to the surface how Christians have debated heresies and heretics. There is a subtle theme in this book that heresies can be discussed rationally, even when one believes deeply that a given...
The two most common heretical slurs tossed around today are "Pelagianism" (or is little friend, semi-Pelagian, which is more slur than substance) and Gnosticism (or neo-Gnosticism). The most formidable early threat to orthodox Christian faith was Genosticism, and the...
Pelagianism is the favorite term thrown around by many today when the intent is to label a theologian as heretical. In the 9th chp of Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe we are...
I find Donatism to be one of the most unknown and yet most pervasive of heresies at work in the church today, and yet we need to be careful once again. Why? In dismissing Donatism we may fall into...
The next heresy in B. Quash and M. Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe concerns Marcion and asks this question: Can Christians dispense with the God of the Old Testament?I hear this...
The next heresy in B. Quash and M. Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe concerns "theopaschitism." The chp is by Michael Ward, an Anglican priest and an expert on C.S. Lewis.What is...
The next heresy in B. Quash and M. Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe concerns adoptionism: the view that believes in a double sonship for Christ. The chp is by Rachel Muers,...
The first two heresies were about who Christ is/was. The next two are about how the divine and the human nature are related. The first concerned Nestorius and Theotokos, the God-bearer. The next heresy is from Eutyches and Eutychianism...
The first two heresies were about who Christ is/was. The next two are about how the divine and the human nature are related. The first concerns Nestorius and gave rise to the Councel of Ephesus at which council Mary...
The most significant error among populist evangelical Christians, one heard in almost any adult SS class or Bible study, is docetism. Never put quite that way, belief by many is that Jesus' humanity is not quite what it seems....
What about Arius, the prototypical heretic? The 1st chp in B. Quash and M. Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe , written by Michael B. Thompson (Anglican Vice-Principal of Ridley Hall in...
The word "heresy" appears on this blog every now and then, and I have long wanted to do a series on heresy and heresies and have now found a perfect reason: B. Quash and M. Ward, Heresies and How to...
A letter from a reader, to which I responded in private. Permission was granted for publication of this letter.Scot,I hope this email finds you healthy and well. I am looking for some guidance or help working through a theological question(s).In...
I recently read Andy Crouch's new book, Culture-Making, a winding book on culture and how Christians can be cultivators of culture.Andy's favorite letter is "C" -- and he's got more C's in this book than any book I've seen. But,...
I have a number of favorite Jewish writers, including may favorite essayist Joseph Epstein. When it comes to the depths of spirituality, very few plumb the depths in their own way like Abraham Joshua Heschel and his two-volume set The...
Who then are the Third Way thinkers and writers? The other day I accidentally posted this and then took it down when I realized it, but Andy Rowell (see below) caught it first and contributed a wonderful set of links...
Many theology professors inform classes that the average Christian is "docetic". That is, they explain how most Christians affirm the humanity of Christ but when it comes down to it they are often uncomfortable with what it means to embrace...
Christopher Wright openly and honestly admits that those of us who adhere to a classic form of belief in God -- God is good, holy, loving, sovereign -- have a problem: evil. Evil is a problem for any thinking Christian...
We've been doing a series on racism and how it has infected our theological beliefs. I've asked some colleagues both from North Park and a friend at Wheaton to join me in this series, but today's post is one of...
On the Jesus Creed we have been engaged in a brief discussion of original sin using Henri Blocher's book Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (New Studies in Biblical Theology) as a guide. This series is part of an ongoing attempt to wrestle...
"This is a book with the not very catchy title Faith and Doubt, and the most important word in the title is the one in the middle," so writes John Ortberg in the introduction to his newest book, Faith and...
I'm holding in my hands at this very moment the original German edition of Gerhard Kittel's famous Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. I've got volume 4. The foreword, written by Kittel himself, is preceded by a page of German...
Chapter 3 of Henri Blocher's book Original Sindeals with discerning the mind of Paul on the issue of Adam and the Fall. Any Christian discussion of the evolution life, the evolution of homo sapiens, and the doctrine of Original Sin...
As I announced recently, we will be doing a series on the brilliant, provocative, and challenging new book by J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account. The book is about racism -- in particular, it is about how racialized theology...
I've been looking for this book: Gordon Isaac, Left Behind or Left Befuddled. I will recommend this book to every Bible student who gets into prophecy and who along the way wants to figure out what in the world is...
How do you understand verse 23 of John 20? How is it that we forgive? 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on...
The last chp of Alan Jacobs' Original Sin sallies from Pope Pius' famous 19th century papal bull Ineffabilis Deus to Stephen Pinker's evolutionary explanation of the mind in his book The Blank Slate. The papal bull, of course, announced the...
By the end of the 19th Century there was so much hope and optimism in the air, one could easily have concluded that the very notion of original sin was a relic of an ancient past. Within 30 years or...
I've been reading Peter Kreeft's fine book about God (The God Who Loves You). One of the more interesting chps of the book deals with how the love of God and loving God resolves some theological issues. One of them:...
One of the claims of many in the USA is that slavery is America's original sin, and that like the impact of original sin on the human race, so slavery has impacted all of American life. This is the subject...
In a recent news item in Christianity Today we learn that the Vatican has decided to remove the word "Yahweh" from public pronunciation and liturgy and song. A professor from Reformed Western Theological Seminary in Hope MI agrees. Here are...
The last case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Scienceis parousia and physical cosmology. The first case study in this book on incarnation was interesting - but somewhat abstract. The second case study on atonement was fascinating and insightful....
Primitivism is the subject of Alan Jacobs' fine study on the New Worlds that emerged in some folks' heads in the 18th Century (in Original Sin). In essence, we ask today just how innocent children are. There's a noble, yea...
The second case study in LeRon Shults's book Christology and Sciencedeals with atonement and cultural anthropology - a topic if anything more controversial than incarnation and evolutionary biology. How should we articulate an understanding of the atonement appropriate for our...
I don't like the image, but there's something to it: Humans are groping in the dark, they reach out, touch an elephant, and report their findings. Some liken this image to how humans understand God and how much they know...
As a working scientist, a professor, and a Christian, the coherence between scientific understanding and theological understanding is a subject of great interest. Most of the books dealing with the conflict between science and faith or reason and faith are...
Alan Jacobs makes some potent claims in chp 7 of Original Sin, this one perhaps the most provocative, and I'm keen on whether you agree or not. "It is, I think, fair to say that the continued existence of a...
I got behind in my posts last week and we've got a wonderful week ahead of us -- so much so that I'd like to put each post at the top of each day! Well, last week's busy-ness meant I...
Alan Jacobs knows that hovering around the topic of original sin is the devil, so he has a chp that explores a "few words about the devil" in his book Original Sin. He begins with a movie I had not...
I like books with important theologians addressing important emotions with insight. And that's what we get with The Consolations of Theology, and the last chapter couldn't be more inviting: C.S. Lewis on pain as discussed by Robert Banks. It had...
Chapter four of Alan Jacobs' book Original Sin wandered for me, and it didn't wander in the directions I wanted it to so I found myself saying, "Why go there?" The images of the chapter, however, are captivating. It's a...
Brian Rosner's chp in The Consolations of Theology about disappointment and Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a model of showing how the theology of a given theologian consoles in the midst of emotional trauma. How do you deal with disappointment? How do...
Two major criticisms of the belief in original sin, according to Alan Jacobs' essay in the history of the idea (Original Sin), can be summarized like this: First let me ask a question: Are infants who die prior to baptism...
In the book The Consolations of Theology we are treated to a series of essays into various emotions and conditions, and Peter Bolt examines anxiety. Here's how he defines anxiety: "that feeling of apprehension and dread that comes with the...
Many know the experience of despair, the sense that there is "nothing ahead but emptiness and ruin." The third study of how theology can console in The Consolations of Theology takes on the theme of despair. How common is Luther's...
In the 2d chp of Alan Jacobs, Original Sin, we learn about the contribution of Augustine to the idea of original sin. Here's what we learn: 1. That sin came into the world through one man -- Adam. 2. That...
Andrew Cameron's essay on obsession, our heart's disordered desires, is worth the price of the book called The Consolations of Theology. I don't know what comes to mind when you hear the word "obsession," perhaps Howard Hughes, but here's how...
I will begin reading soon some books about God, and I thought I'd give some of you a heads-up on what's coming. I will be reading these two books for sure: Peter Kreeft's fine book, The God Who Loves You....
We have turned to Alan Jacobs, Original Sin, and his essay-like approach to original sin. I want to begin today with a question: If we bracket the notion of original sin -- something on the order of inheriting not only...
This series is by RJS This has been a long series looking at Tim Keller’s book The Reason for God. Perhaps too long some of you may think. Yet, a wrap-up now seems in order. In this book Keller deconstructs...
This series is by RJS Orthodox Christianity as affirmed in the historic creeds is at its heart Trinitarian -there is one God existing in three persons. But what does this mean --- and why is it important? Certainly the Trinity...
This series is by RJS One of the biggest hurdles to orthodox Christian belief in our world today is affirmation of the bodily resurrection of Jesus as historical reality. After all we know better than this. Isn't it a much...
This series is by RJS We have taken a hiatus in the series on Tim Kellers' book The Reason for God, not out of lack of interest, but out of pressing time constraints and travel. The last several chapters are...
The Wheaton Theology conference from 2007 now has its papers published in Ancient Faith for the Church's Future. There are two ways to look at this book -- either chp by chp in a series of posts or by sketching...
Every reference to "wrath" in the book of Revelation refers to God's act of judgment against sin and sinners on the plane of history. Here are the verses: 6:15-17: 15 Then the kings of the earth and the magnates and...
Robert Webber, in what I think will be his last book -- I thought his previous one was!, applies his classic narrative understanding of Christian theology to two crises before us: the threat of radical Islam and Christian accommodation to...
Hebrews uses the term "wrath" twice and both times it is a quotation from Psalm 95:11: In a warning passage, the writer of Hebrews warns the audience to press on in faith and obedience and warns the readers by reminding...
A text that reveals how important "historical" wrath is for the earliest Christians, and this use is characteristic of the OT and Judaism, is found in 1 Thessalonians 1:10: We begin with verse 9: For the people of those regions...
Two texts today, one from Ephesians 5:6 and the other from Colossians 3:6, are considered: Ephesians 5:6-9: Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient....
We are testing a hypothesis, namely, this one: Does "wrath" refer only to "historical" events in history, the negative implications of doing things contrary to God's will, or does it also refer to "evangelistic" wrath (threatening with wrath when evangelizing)...
If the problem is Sin --- and Sin is failure to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength --- what is the solution? The last...
Yesterday I suggested the wrath of Romans 12:19 ("but leave room for the wrath of God ... vengeance...") was historical wrath, and here's why -- from Romans 13: 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to...
Paul connects God to wrath, and he does so quite demonstrably in Romans 12:19: 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in...
This post is by RJS Here is the big question facing us today… What is the problem? We do not live in the Garden of Eden (Utopia, Shangri La, Paradise --- you name it). Most of us would agree that...
We are looking at the meaning of wrath (orge) and anger (thumos) in the NT -- and we are looking at these texts to see if they tip off a consistent pattern. The pattern we are looking for is one...
Yes, these texts from Paul about wrath are the sensitive spot for many today, but our task is to look at them, to look them in the eye, and see if we can make sense of them. Romans 4 has...
This post is by RJS Part two of Tim Kellers' The Reason for Godbegins discussion of the reasons for faith. Chapters 8 and 9 form one whole, dealing with clues for the existence of God – within nature and within...
In the first five chps of Romans the term "wrath" appears; we are in chp 3 today: 1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much, in every way. For in the first...
God's impartial judgment of everyone, Jews and Gentiles, brings to the fore a reference to "wrath" in Romans 2:5: 1 Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn...
This series is by RJS Following Tim Keller in The Reason for Godwe have now presented and discussed seven of the biggest objections raised against the Christian faith. None of these objections are fatal to the historic Christian faith when...
The issues surrounding the meaning of wrath came out of the woodwork last Friday. Today we continue our series of marching through NT texts that use the word "wrath." As I said last Monday, the evidence could be easily multiplied...
Here is a fantastic question asked of us about the issue of wrath ... How do you respond to this mom? Dear Scot, This will be a timely series for me and our family. We've been reading through Joshua in...
This series and this post are by RJS; and we are glad Scot is back – because the challenges confronting us in this chapter are up his alley not mine. Come on, many ask us today, you can't really take...
Now a brief summary of what we've seen in the two passages about wrath in the Synoptic Gospels ... and we'll get to John 3:36 when we get to the apostle John. When we get there, we may have to...
Luke 21 reads: "20 When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and...
This post is by RJS; for the record a Professor of Chemistry and thus (take a deep breath) a scientist... We all know, or have heard repeated over and over ... Science has Disproved Christianity... the elite and intelligent know...
Well, after our conversation yesterday we're ready to dive in. To be honest, this is the sort of issue that could take about fifty directions, one of which would be to canvass the Old Testament on "wrath." Readers of that...
There are some today who'd like to burn a wrath path through the Christian Church -- those who believe in it can move to the right and those who don't can move to the left as the path winds and...
This post is --- once again --- by RJS, and we are all looking forward to Scot's return. As usual - personal reflections are mine - I don't know Scot's position. Now we come to a topic where I anticipate...
This post is by RJS - so personal reflections are mine, not Scot's In Chapter Four of The Reason for GodTim Keller broaches a topic I have found a real stumbling block over the years: If the Christian story is...
This post is by RJS - looking at Keller's book, not as a pastor, an evangelist, or a theologian, but as a lay Christian who has been immersed in secular academia for 27 years as graduate student, postdoctoral scholar, and...
This series is by RJS as Scot and Kris enjoy South Africa Chapter 2 of Tim Keller’s book The Reason for Godbroaches the problem of pain. Given the pain and suffering in the world – either God is not good...
This series is by RJS (so blame me not Scot) With this post we start our series looking at Timothy Keller's new book The Reason for Godand using this book as a resource to grapple with the questions and issues...
Here begins a new series by RJS, one of the most faithful participants of this blog, on Tim Keller's new book. Timothy Keller, founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan recently came out with a new book The Reason for...
Thomas Oden, in his enthusiasm for the unity of the faith in Africa -- both North and sub Saharan, got me to thinking the other day about what color Augustine was. We can't be sure, but the ethnic judgments made...
A case can be made, and in fact has been made, that the Christian faith most Christians profess today -- its creedal affirmations -- comes from Africa. From one of two major locations in Africa: Alexandria (Egypt) and Carthage (the...
The major contention of Darrell Cosden is that what we do -- our work -- is being redeemed and will be finally redeemed (saved) and will figure into Eternity, the Eternal City, the new heavens and the new earth. So,...
A reader writes me this set of questions and I've cobbled together two exchanges with him about this issue... but the words are his: What is the proper role of fear -- using fear -- in the Christian life? My...
The fundamental problem in discerning how we look at "work" is dualism -- the one that contends what really matters is the spiritual while the material is not as important. Darrell Cosden, in The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, turns...
The fundamental problem in Christian thinking about work is dualism. That dualism leads to a hierarchy of what matters most. These two statements are at the heart of chp 1 of Darrell Cosden, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, and...
Perhaps because I teach college students who frequently bring up what they will do for work when they leave college, perhaps because of some of my Anabaptist convictions, or perhaps because I love what "work" I do -- and probably...
Apologetics is changing in the 21st Century, changing from arguments that rationally prove the truth of Christianity to a gospel that, as Mel Lawrenz calls it, summons humans because of the "divine allure." In his book, I Want to Believe,...
This is the last of a series of posts [by RJS] looking at the book The Language of God by Francis S. Collins, Director, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Today we will turn to...
This series is from RJS... This is the fifth in a series of posts looking at the book The Language of God by Francis S. Collins, Director, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Part Three...
This series is from RJS... This is the fourth in a series of posts looking at the book The Language of God by Francis S. Collins, Director, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Two lectures...
This series is from RJS and she is an expert in this topic and way beyond what I could do. I, Scot, think this is a very significant post in this series; read it carefully. This is the third in...
This series is from RJS and she is an expert in this topic and way beyond what I could do. We continue today with a series of posts looking at the book The Language of God by Francis S. Collins,...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) This series is from RJS and she is an expert in this topic and way beyond what I could do. I'm honored to have her leading this discussion. Almost two years...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) We need a new book on the basics of the orthodox faith; a readable study that anyone can read. I've read a few such books in my life, but the challenge...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) Anthony Thiselton's new book, Hermeneutics of Doctrine, written for experts, continues a list of seminal, profound, penetrating, if not esoteric at times, writings on hermeneutics. In this book, Thiselton applies his...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) We now come to the end of Tom Wright's book, Surprised by Hope. Today I want only to summarize very briefly the last two chps because we have already come to...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) Chp 13 in Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope explores building the kingdom and does so by showing that his view of resurrection reshapes justice, beauty, and evangelism. Overall, a vigorous embodied...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) Chp 12 in Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope is a major change: we move from "what it said" to "what it says," from text to mission. Is this only about tidying...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) I like this book by Tom Wright: Surprised by Hope. And here's a chp (#11) you don't hear many Protestants talk about these days: purgatory, paradise, hell. Quick answers: no, yes,...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) What is the future hope for the individual? What does Tom Wright, in Surprised by Hope, mean by the "redemption of our bodies"? (chp 10) WrightSaid: "a new type of bodily...
(Say the Jesus Creed morning and evening during Lent.) What does Tom Wright, in Surprised by Hope, think the NT teaches about Jesus as the Coming Judge? How central -- and this is my question -- is the final judgment...
(Say the Jesus Creed daily during Lent.) Does Tom Wright believe in the Second Coming? That question has been asked since Tom wrote his exceptional book on Jesus called Jesus and the Victory of God. I recall a conversation I...
(Say the Jesus Creed daily during Lent.) The ascension. So what? That's really behind chp 6 of Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope. Maybe the best chp yet. When I wrote both Embracing Grace and A Community called Atonement, I was...
Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope keeps getting better and better for me. In chp 6 he sketches a view of the future that avoids the disastrous inability of evolution to deal with sin and the mistaken notion that we need...
Before Tom Wright discusses the future for the individual he goes where the Bible goes: first the corporate and then the individual. In chp 5 of Surprised by Hope he examines two ideas that shape how even many Christians think...
Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope is the closest thing to C.S Lewis' Mere Christianity I have seen. Sure, it's a different kind of book, but it has the same level of immediacy and insight. Chp 4 is called "the strange...
Tom Wright's new book, Surprised by Hope:, has just about become required reading for my Jesus of Nazareth class. In twenty gentle pages Tom sums up his massive study on the resurrection: Resurrection of the Son of God. How do...
A key word for Tom Wright in his book Surprised by Hope: is "muddle." That word best describes how so many Christians think about life after death and resurrection and the like. Wright aims to end the muddle. One of...
We begin a series today with N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope::Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. For more than a decade or so Bishop Tom Wright has been making comments, dropping suggestions, and prompting the curiosity...
In 1919 Babe Ruth was sold from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees, and it took 85 years for the Red Sox to win another World Series. It happened in 2004. Antony Flew tells us that it...
One of the issues permeating the question of why there are world religions has to do with the massive diversity in the world and -- to be blunt about it all -- the "luck" or "chance" involved in some hearing...
The more I read Gerald McDermott's God's Rivals the more convinced I am that this is the kind of book churches need to be using and here are my reasons for saying this: 1. The issues of the reality of...
What makes Gerald McDermott's book God's Rivals distinctive is that it explores how both the Bible and early Christians dealt with other religions. In chp 6 he explores how Irenaeus' debates with Gnosticism shed light on why God has permitted...
We turn now to Calvin's arguments from the early church (Institutes of the Christian Religion). Anabaptists, Calvin's sparring partners, argue that the NT evidence shows that repentance and faith are required before baptism is administered. They also argue that the...
A distinct contribution of Gerald McDermott's God's Rivals is his exposition of how the earliest Christians approached the question of other religions. Chp 5 deals with Justin Martyr's ideal of "seeds of the Word in other religions." Which of Justin's...
John Franke, professor at Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, PA, has assigned my penitence to be reading Calvin's treatment of infant baptism (Institutes of the Christian Religion). Today I turn to 4.16.21-22. The rumor is that John has escaped my critique...
Gerald McDermott, in God's Rivals, addresses an issue of major significance in the Church today, especially (so it seems to me) for the emerging crowd. The issue is the role of world religions and how Christians can explain them. In...
I don't know if you have observed this, but if you pay attention you will see something in the Old Testament: the authors and people of the OT at times seem to believe there are other gods. In chp 3...
In chp 2 of Gerald McDermott's God's Rivals we are treated to a study of the surprising knowledge of God outside Israel and the Church. Again, the question here is the scandal of particularity and God's rivals in world religions....
Telford Work closes this book,Ain't Too Proud to Beg, a series of ruminations leading to themes in the Lord's Prayer, with three sermons under the chp title "Amen." Each is in some sense a response to 9/11, each in a...
Our day needs its best theologians, historians, biblical scholars, missiologists and pastors to sit down at table to discuss world religions. The issues pressing for answers are enormous in significance, and that is why I'd like to open a series...
"Now let us examine," John Calvin says with a scorching pen, "the arguments by which certain mad beasts ceaselessly assail this holy institution" [infant baptism]. This is found in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.16.10. So, we enter today...
My penitence for the Bears losing to the Vikings is to read John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, chp 16, on infant baptism. Calvin doesn't begin on a good note for me when he refers to Anabaptists,...
I tire, as many of you no doubt do too, of the word Episcopalian meaning "debate about gays and lesbians." There is much more to the Episcopal church and the Anglican Communion worldwide than this debate, but it has garnered...
Last night I was sitting in front of our college with my colleague and friend, Brad Nassif, nibbling away on our dinners and we struck up a conversation about Irenaeus' great book,Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. Brad said something I...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Today marks the last Friday devoted to a conversation about Jon Wilson's fine study of the church called Why Church Matters. Next Friday we begin Tracy Balzer's Thin Places: An Evangelical Journey into Celtic Christianity. Does suffering play any role...
Categories: Books,
Theology
We are at the second to last chapter in Jon Wilson's Why Church Matters and I want to ask a question that for many of my readers is (perhaps) ludicrous to ask. If not ludicrous, perhaps the question is just...
Categories: Books,
Theology
The 8th chp of Jonathan Wilson's study, Why Church Matters, has to do with baptism, eucharist and footwashing, and in today's post I will take issue in a way that I hope will generate a good conversation. Wilson contends that...
Blogs vary from the fun to the gravely serious, and sometimes on this blog I set out an idea or an argument about which I have confidence and sometimes I put forth an idea to generate conversation that I'd like...
Because of a recent letter, I have a few questions today: Do you have a theology of pets? Do you find some are so committed to their pets they are incapable of serving humans? What kind of theology of pet-care...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Is Eat this Book by Eugene Peterson. How do you read the Bible? I begin with my own orientation to Peterson's book. Some view the Bible through epistemological eyes: they see it as truth and upon this truth all others...
If anyone got their hopes high after Mark Noll's book, Is the Reformation Over?, the answer is now officially "No!" Yesterday the Pope re-affirmed the RCC teaching that those who have lost connection with apostolic succession and authority have disconnected...
Categories: Books,
Theology
We're back to Jon Wilson's Why Church Matters, and chp 5 is a fascinating chp. But Jon cheats here -- in his section on worship he has included a chp on the pastor. It's the adjustment of a nice article...
Yesterday I posted a letter from a reader of this blog and promised that today I'd finish my answer to him. So I begin with an excerpt of his letter and then a response. It's a tough one we need...
Categories: Books,
Theology
We're back with Jon Wilson's fine book, Why Church Matters: Worship, Ministry, and Mission in Practice -- and this week we look at another chp on worship and it is about the significance of the Trinity for worship. Good topic....
Categories: Books,
Theology
When Augustine said his heart was not at rest until it came to rest in God, was he simply saying that we are selfish and coming to God makes us happy? That we use God for our own ends? Is...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Today we look at the 3d chp in Jon Wilson's book, Why Church Matters. This chp concerns how we know when our worship is pleasing to God. Both pastors and lay leaders, along with any Christian who wonders about "good"...
Now we come to the third model of worship in James B. Torrance, Worship, Community & The Triune God of Grace. We looked at the Unitarian and the Existentialist, and today we look at the Trinitarian model. How "christological" is...
In James B. Torrance's book, Worship, Community & The Triune God of Grace, we discover three models of worship: Unitarian, Existential, and Trinitarian. Today we look at the Existential model. Is the fundamental issue in "worship" the "experience" of worship,...
Basing my reflections here on James B. Torrance, Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace, I want to open up for conversation the topic of worship -- and ask "What is it?" In his 1st chp, Torrance outlines three...
Scot, If you’ve discussed this elsewhere, then please accept my apologies. In light of recent heated discussions on issues such as (but not limited to) homosexuality in the church, much has been said about respecting the authority of Scripture. However,...
Categories: Books,
Theology
From John Goldingay, Israel's Gospel, p. 61, where he describes how he teaches his classes: first, a 40 minute lecture; then a 30 minute small group discussion; and then a 30 minute plenary/class discussion. Then he makes an observation --...
Lauren Winner, author of Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath, and Real Sex, was at North Park Theological Seminary last week and the seminary was kind enough to make the lectures public -- so my two classes gathered in the seminary...
I have been asked to speak at next year's AEF Call (Nov 31-Dec 1) at Northern Seminary. What is the AEF Call about? It is a Call for evangelical Christians to embrace the history of the whole Church. Here is...
Categories: Books,
Theology
This is part two of RJS's review of Vern Poythress, Redeeming Science. Vern Poythress in his book Redeeming Science begins with a thoroughly Christian worldview. God is the creator of the world. Everything came into being by Him and through...
USA Today posted an article on whether or not it is worth saving the E-word (evangelical), and interviewed a variety of folks. I posted on this not all that long ago, and in light of a good conversation I had...
Categories: Books,
Theology
One of the difficulties in blogging through a book is finding a book that can sustain a conversation over a month or more by both advancing an argument and doing so in such a way that variety obtains. Miroslav Volf's...
I have of late received e-mails from some who are facing severe doubts about their life and about the Christian faith, and I have no capacity here to dissolve doubts by cooking them dry on some apologetic stove -- by...
How, Miroslav Volf in his The End of Memory asks, does a Christian remember rightly? In particular, how does a Christian remember suffered wrongs if the Christian learns to remember throught he lenses of the Exodus and the Passion? This...
Categories: Books,
Theology
In chps 3 and 4 of Hans Urs von Balthasar's Love Alone is Credible, Balthasar speaks of an aesthetic that speaks to us from outside ourselves. Such an aesthetic perception of beauty cannot be reduced to my imagination. Love, Balthasar,...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Friends, we might need to remind ourselves, talk about the inner life, and nothing is more "inner" than a wounded self -- a person who has been damaged to the core by wrongdoing. Miroslav Volf's The End of Memory (chp....
If you have a chance, I recommend each of you carve out the evening of Dec 20, from 7-9pm, to watch CNN. The show is called After Jesus: The First Christians, and it is an excellent and stimulating presentation of...
Growing out of the Reformation is the contention that there are "two marks" of the Church: the Lord's supper and preaching of the Word: Word and Sacrament. Some added "church discipline" as a third mark. The Catholic tradition has been...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Richard Dawkins, who writes with a prose that is saucy and caustic and witty, argues in his newest book that God is a delusion. I will be joined in this series by RJS; I will write the first few paragraphs...
Categories: Books,
Theology
In my teaching career, especially since I've been at North Park and started with this blog, I've had more than a few questions that are now being given a fresh examination by Peter Enns, in his new book, Inspiration and...
I must confess something: I love seminaries. Other than the obvious -- teaching and training pastors and missionaries and evangelists and the like -- what I like most is the rhetorical level. Using theological words brings me pleasure, the kind...
Like the Beach Boys, I've been all around these States of ours in the last three years, and I have an observation about church unity: everyone between 20 and 40 packs a computer, reads blogs, and dresses the same. Even...
This is our last in the series on Roger Olson's book, Arminian Theology. Myth #10 is that Arminians adhere to the "governmental theory of atonement." Most may not know what this theory holds, and most may never have heard that...
Categories: Books,
Theology
What, LeRon Shults asks, is "knowledge" like for God and for us -- that is, after the turn to relationality? His answer is very important for each of us. What God knows cannot be reduced to cognition, or to knowledge...
Categories: Books,
Theology
"Of the three late modern trajectories," LeRon Shults concludes at the end of chp 7 of Reforming the Doctrine of God, "the renewal of eschatological ontology may be the most difficult to understand for many Western readers." Indeed. And this...
Myth #6 in Roger Olson's book, Arminian Theology, is another oft-repeated accusation against Arminians: that Arminian theology is a human-centered theology with an optimistic anthropology. In fact, Olson argues, Arminian theology is every bit as God-intoxicated as Calvinist theology when...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Chp 6 of LeRon Shults' absolutely breath-taking (and not easy to read) book Reforming the Doctrine of God deals with "reviving trinitarian doctrine." The recent revival of trinitarian thought shows an affinity for the Cappadocians, and also for Luther and...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Myth #5: Arminian theology denies the sovereignty of God. The fundamental expression Roger Olson uses, in his book Arminian Theology, is that "God is in charge of everything without controlling everything." It may surprise to hear one say this, but...
We need to resume our look at LeRon Shults, Reforming the Doctrine of God. He speaks of God's infinity and Trinity and futurity, and I have called this the "in-God and un-God" because his study deals with terms like infinity...
Myth #4: the heart of Arminianism is belief in free will. Nonsense, Olson argues in his must-read Arminian Theology. The heart of Arminian theology is the character of God, God's goodness, and its system yearns to glorify God by exalting...
One of our readers has asked about cremation vs. burial. Tacitus, the Roman leader, once said that the Jews "bury rather than burn dead bodies" (Hist. 5.5). Not all have agreed with this ancient tradition, though. What do you think?...
In Roger Olson's Arminian Theology, chp. 3, a 3d Myth is addressed: that Arminianism is neither orthodox nor evangelical. I cannot say that I have ever heard anyone say Arminians are not orthodox, but I have heard more than I...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Social context shapes how we read the Bible, and the 16th chp in J. Holcomb's Christian Theologies of Scripture is written by L.B. Baldwin and S.W. Murphy on how Scripture works in the African American tradition. I've posted on this...
A nice convergence: our series on Women in Ministry and on Scriptures and Scripture converge in the chapter by Pamela Cochran on "Scripture, Feminism, and Sexuality." This chapter in Justin Holcomb's book, Christian Theologies of Scripture, neatly and efficiently rehearses...
Categories: Books,
Theology
A theologian with an enormous impact but whom I've barely read is Hans Urs van Balthasar. In Justin Holcomb's Christian Theologies of Scripture, the essay on Balthasar is written by a specialist, W.T. Dickens. The question he provokes is this...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Here is a question that occurs to anyone sensitive to interpreting the Bible: Is the event itself -- say the crossing of the Red Sea or the exile/return or the incarnation or the death or the resurrection of Jesus --...
Categories: Books,
Theology
What is the proper order? Do we believe in Scripture because we believe in Christ -- as a result of preaching and the illumination of the Spirit? Or, do we believe in Christ because we believe in the Scriptures? Did...
Categories: Books,
Theology
In LeRon Shults' book, Reforming the Doctrine of God, the 4th chp takes on "God as First Cause," and once again puts the way this has been understood to the test of whether it measures up to the biblical concept...
Categories: Books,
Theology
In this series on how Scripture has been understood in the history of the Church, we will be reading through J.S. Holcomb’s Christian Theologies of Scripture. Today’s post will make brief remarks about Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, the Catholic Reform (Counter...
Sad news about Robert Webber: Bob needs your prayers! Recently he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. There is a service of healing and prayer scheduled for Monday Sept 11, 2006 at Bob's church: Harbert Community Church, Harbert, MI at...
Categories: Books,
Theology
I'm doing some reading for a short piece on the doctrine of Scripture. One of the issues pressing many revolves around the unity of the Bible -- is it Scripture or is it scriptures? -- which provokes the question also...
Categories: Books,
Theology
"In"-God and "Un"-God is my expression for the transcendence of God, the God who is so unlike the absorption of so many with an "immanent" God-who-is-alot-like-us- but just-a-little-bit-more-than-us but before whom very few sense awe. To help us forward with...
David Wells, in his new book Above All Earthly Pow'rs, points a big finger at megachurches and seeker-friendly churches for their approach to ministry -- for "doing church differently." He points to five factors leading to this new approach, and...
I frequent your website the "Jesus Creed" and greatly appreciate what you have to add regarding various issues of the Christian faith. I am currently reading your book Praying with the Church and find it delightful that you appreciate many...
I've been asked by a handful of people to comment about the most recent article in Christianity Today called "Young, Restless, Reformed," the cover story for September's edition. Calvinism, the article records, is making a comeback among young evangelical (especially...
Last Friday we took an initial look at what I am calling Neo-Fundamentalism. Today we will look at the core driving force to Neo-Fundamentalism, but before doing that, we need to see its relationship to Fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, of the American...
Tuesday morning, in a short conversation with a colleague, we had a moment where we agreed on something we had never spoken to each other about. We have both observed the rise of a neo-fundamentalism. What struck both of us...
We've been looking this week at emerging and orthodoxy. I stand in line with those who affirm orthodoxy, but I'm quite happy to have conversation with those who have their questions. But the importance of such conversation does not replace...
What is the relationship of the emerging movement and the orthodox creeds? How do you think it relates or should relate to orthodoxy? Well, I don't speak for anyone, but I'll tell you what I think: it varies. (I'll bet...
The word "orthodoxy" is slippery today, and many use it for something more than the historic creeds. Orthodoxy refers to the faith statements of the classical creeds. "Heresy" refers to teachings contrary to those creeds. This week we are exploring...
For many in the emerging movement there is a good reason to express the Christian faith by appealing to the creeds: that reason is ecumenical. By appealing to the creeds one is able to get way behind and well beyond...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Environmentalism? Where do you stand? Are you green, dark green, light green, or something else? If your tendency is to move to another blog because this post is about something you are not interested in, well maybe you should hang...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Just in case you haven't heard of it, in the early 1990s Richard John Neuhaus (editor of First Things) and Charles Colson (who needs no intro to most of you) began a fruitful dialogue that has led to four "Evangelical...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Where do you find Roman Catholic theology? Now, before we go too far, let me make this point: Evangelicals tend to define themselves and therefore everyone else by their doctrinal statement. (This has given rise, in part, to the emerging...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Here’s the question I propose to you regarding Noll and Nystrom’s book, Is the Reformation Over?: How significant are ecumenical dialogues for (1) the RC Church as a whole and (2) for lay level understandings of the RC faith? Here’s...
Last Friday, after getting a phone call the day before from Spencer Burke to see if we could stop by his home on Newport Beach on our way down to San Diego, we found our way down a few busy...
Categories: Books,
Theology
Noll and Nystrom, in their Is the Reformation Over?, chp 3, see the shifts that occurred in the 1950s to concern four, yea five, things: changes within the Catholic Church, in world Christianity, in American politics and society, in the...
A major shift is afoot. It is a substantial, however incomplete, rapprochement with Roman Catholicism on key issues. What issues? Justification? Yes. Really? Yes. And others? Yes, others too. What has happened in the theological world since the 1950s when...
A personal e-mail yesterday from a blog reader, RJS, suggested another idea for this series on zealotry. What is the impact of a high fences or thick fences? That is, what happens when one is accustomed to dwell in the...
If I had an easy solution to the problem of zealotry, I wouldn't need to write about it because an easy solution would create a situation were zealotry would not appear. The issues are complex, they involve human nature, and...
Zealotry is to construct rules beyond the Bible and, in so doing, to consider oneself immune from criticism because of radical commitment. What we have learned is that such a radical commitment is actually a fearful commitment rather than a...
Zealotry is the choice to protect holiness by living beyond what the Bible says, and it finds in that zeal a source of immunity from being wrong. I contend that zealotry reflects an absence of trust in God's Word. Its...
Zealotry is the Christian theory, never expressed consciously, that if we are more zealous than the Bible we are immune from criticism. After all, we've done at the least what the Bible says and more! Zealotry leads to a life...
In a recent Books & Culture, Thomas Albert Howard weighs in on how evangelical colleges might prepare themselves for the likelihood that one or more of their (somtimes quite treasured) professors might convert to another of the Great Traditions of...
3.0 The Orthodoxy of Orthodoxy 3.1 Defining “Orthodoxy” Perhaps the best place to begin is with a two-line, inelegant poem I wrote some time ago when I was reading Dante: He who fashions the story, assigns to each a glory....
2.0 The Orthodoxy of Heresy Ehrman, who relentlessly tries to unveil the truth about earliest Christianity in order to demonstrate that it was a suppressive machine of power-mongers, commits the very sin he castigates. If the “sin” of the proto-orthodoxy...
I gave this paper sometime ago, but it pertains to The DaVinci Code movie. What I do is deal witih the proposals of heresy and orthodoxy behind the book, and the two major proponents of these theories today: Elaine Pagels...
From time to time I read a blog or hear someone call another person a "heretic." Recently a blogfriend asked me how I would define "heretic" or "heresy." I've been asked this about two people, and I won't use names...
A purple theology believes that to one degree or another the Reformation is over. By that it means that the Reformation's summons of the Church to return to the Bible (sola scriptura) and to faith as the sole means of...
A former student called and asked me about humility. Which in itself surprised me because I don't think he called me because he thought I was particularly humble. Its lack in my life, however, didn't stop me from ruminating with...
I've not read it put any better than this when it comes to how Jews respond to the cross and how Christians depict it: "There is a glaring contradiction between a theological tradition [of anti-Semitism] which sets the cross against...
Let me suggest at this point that there are five elements in moral decisions, and each interacts with one another rather than being a simplistic conveyor belt series of elements. Some will give more emphasis to one than another; some...
Rock-bottom motivations for moral decisions tend to revolve around these views. First, altruism: I help my neighbor, regardless of what I think of the person, because helping others is a good. Second, the alternative to altruism is ethical egoism: I...
Failure is an element of Jesus' moral logic: when it comes to discussing what Jesus has to say and what he taught about following him, what he said about loving God and loving others, then failure looms large in the...
The question we asked recently, and to which so many responded, is an important one: What to do about the Lord's Supper? To answer a question like this involves decisions on a variety of issues, including whether or not one...
If those who are summoned to the table of transformation by Jesus are to love God, they are also to love others, and this has significant implications for the issues that swirl around homosexuality and the Church. It works in...
Not long ago a pastor-friend told me a story. At his church were two known lesbians with whom he had met a few times, and with whom he had developed a pleasant relationship. They liked the church. Then the Lord's...
At the deepest level, Jesus summoned his followers to love God and to love others. The God they were summoned to love was the God of Israel, and the God of Israel spoke in Scripture and Jesus' followers were therefore...
"What would Jesus say?," or "What would Jesus do?," are the questions we are asking. We know "what Jesus would say" would be embodied in "how he lived" and how he treated those who were same-sex in practice. So, the...
The next chapter in Douglas Jacobsen and Rodney Sawatsky's small study in theology, Gracious Christianity, turns next to "Human Nature." The chp deals with Image of God (something dear to my heart), and then with a few topics around the...
In the first chp in their primer on theology from the angle of grace, Jacobsen and Sawatsky look at God and Creation. They look at God as Creator, as One and as Trinity. God, so they say, did not create...
A second theme in the ethical teaching of Jesus that sheds some light on this debated controversy about homosexuality is that of conversion, which is the transformation of cracked Eikons by grace into living out that grace. I rely here...
Douglas Jacobsen and (now deceased) Rodney J. Sawatsky have co-published a wondrous little book called Gracious Christianity: Living the Love We Profess (Baker, 2006). The book is short, but that won't stop me from savoring each chapter with separate posts....
This, our second post on Jesus and homosexuality, begins our survey of the central themes of Jesus' ethical/moral teachings, and asks how such a theme might shed light on our discussion. I think we can agree that there is no...
Life is not law. For Jesus at least. The place to begin a constructive understanding of how Christians should relate to persons with same-sex orientation and think about homosexuality is with Jesus' practice of table fellowship. Why? Because it represents...
This is our second post on defining homosexuality. One of the issues that we have to face is how we think about same-sex orientation and choice. Is same-sex orientation a choice or not? My own view of the matter is...
Because of the heated emotions that rise to the surface even in genuine discussions of this topic, I want to begin by saying that in many ways I'm struggling both to discuss homosexuality on a blog and I continue to...
In any discussion of homosexuality we need to set what the Bible says in context. Those statements come from contexts about covenant behaviors and sexuality in general, and the also come in the context of understanding what it means to...
Besides the hideous treatment that many Christians inflict upon those who openly express their homosexuality -- which I simply cannot understand and which I cannot tolerate as Christian behavior, perhaps the next "baddest" thing is that Christians treat the Bible...
I watched some of Larry King's program tonight, and observed the discussion between the straight seminary president, the gay movie star and the gay (former) mayor in Wyoming. What struck me most was the way each made moral judgments and...
Do you ever make the sign of the Cross on yourself? I do. Roman Catholics have always done this, and so also have the Orthodox. But, (esp. evangelical) Protestants have not done this almost entirely because it would be an...
Why do we read the Bible? I'll venture to guess here. Our tendency is to go to the Bible for something new, to read it in the hope and expectation of a fresh discovery of something we did not know...
Tookie Williams was executed last night, at the stroke of midnight. I do not know enough of the facts to judge whether or not California was just, nor do I want to comment on the Tookie Williams case. My view...
My post, Seven Habits of Successful Emerging Discussions, generated enough suggestions that I thought it would be good to post today on how Emerging Movement folk (EMers) might better converse with evangelicals. Just as I don't assume to speak for...
Tom Wright's newest book, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture, arrived on my desk at just the right time. I posted last week on the authority of Scripture, and asked...
Well, in light of my last post about Scripture and authority we might as well put this term on the table too: "inerrancy." If I suggested in a hotly-commented post that "authority" does not tell us enough about our relationship...
Some of you will remember a previous post when I suggested that a "purple" theology probably will not find the word "authority" as the appropriate word for Scripture. Now, I have no truck with the word "authority" apart from the...
It's been a long day. I got up early, went to a prayer meeting with some wonderful pastors and leaders, had a breakfast, spoke my heart out to these same pastors and leaders, had lunch, two hours of driving and...
I've done this more than most. When I see a church with no denominational affilation (say, the Rock of Wonders Community of Jesus Christ now dwelling at this corner), I wonder "what do they believe?" When I see a Lutheran...
Fighting racism isn't a tack-on to what happens "after I believe," but an issue wrapped up in the gospel grace of God we embrace when we embrace Jesus Christ and his kingdom vision. How often do we make distinctions between...
Let us define racism as an ideology of superiority in which a person, due to a biological or physiological or cultural condition, which are tagged as inherent to the person, is systemically considered inferior, leading both to ideas and policies...
This is our last post on Franke's book, The Character of Theology. Here's my overall assessment: The book exposes themes that penetrate deeply into the fabric of doing theology and deserves to be read, especially by students who have teachers...
This fifth installment of Franke's Character of Theology deals with the second half of chapter 4: The Task of Theology. A brief on the second half of chp 4 Franke surveys how Scripture and tradition relate, and proposes three models...
My good friend, and both excellent evangelist and author, Garry Poole, invited me to a luncheon with Brian McLaren. He spoke about seven levels of involvement in the emerging conversation (he made it clear that it is not an emerging...
In this third post in a series on Franke's understanding of what theology is, we will look at what he says about the nature of theology. (By the way, Baker puts too many words on a page.) Franke, many will...
Franke's Character of Theology, which I began here, turns in the second chapter to the Subject of Theology. The book is written for seminary students and academics. A Brief of the second chapter In essence (no pun here), the Subject...
John Franke's new book, The Character of Theology: An Introduction to Its Nature, Task, and Purpose, promises to be a study of theology that will enable (what I have elsewhere called) a purple theology. In other words, it is postconservative...
For a long time I have pondered blogging about Scripture. Of late I have been thinking this question: "What constitutes the unity of Scripture?" Let me provide, in this post, a brief taxonomy of the options and in so doing...
What E.B. White, that great writer called the big syllable, can be seen in what Purple Theology will see in ecclesiology. If we are to move beyond the ageless denominational bickering so typical of the Church, we will have to...
The recent interview of Brian McLaren in Sojourners made a slight plea for purple politics -- neither red nor blue but purple. I have for a long time talked about how theology in the 80s became Reaganology, and by that...
In this our last post on a generous orthodoxy that can genuinely shape a fourth way, I want to look at a basic premise of the younger generation and a premise that many of my generation find difficult to handle.I...
A genuine generous orthodoxy is conversational in style and in relationships. Conversation transcends everything we are and do. If we define "conversation" properly, it moves beyond "chatting" to become central to who we are and what we are aboutl.OrthodoxyThe first...
This series on Generous Orthodoxy, which I think remains an evangelical movement until it can find a genuine fourth way, I have looked at a number of features that may provide a basis for conversation as we look into the...
This post will be the most radical I will present on generous (evangelical) orthodoxy.The best of Christian theology begins at the End, at the Eschaton, when God wraps all of history up. And this means that the best understandings of...
When I was in seminary, one of my teachers was asked "What kind of evangelical are you?" and he said, "I am a C.S. Lewis kind of evangelical?" To which he was asked yet another, "What kind is that?" and...
One of the more provocative books I've read from the Emergents is Doug Pagitt's Church Re-imagined (aka, Reimagining Spiritual Formation). Within the pages of that book Pagitt discusses how Solomon's Porch deals with the creeds because, as Pagitt informs us,...
The community focus of generous orthodoxy begins with a vibrant non-Puritanism. Puritanism was the attempt by some to "purify" the Anglican Church of unbelievers and the unorthodox and questioning and struggling, and has been one of the many movements in...
Is there a possibility for a Fourth Way for the Emerging Church? A way that lives in the story of the entire Church, including the Eastern Orthodox tradition and the Western Roman Catholic tradition, as well as the Protestant tradition,...
The place to begin in mapping a generous orthodoxy is the Kingdom of God as the vision Jesus gave to us for God's redemptive work on this earth. As I said before, this map of mine is preciptiated by Brian...
Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy has called forth an enormous response, much of which has simply not taken the time to read the book carefully and assess it as a rhetorical wake-up call for Evangelicalism to take stock with how it...
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
