Indictments
of the supposed guardians of orthodoxy proliferate throughout the biblical text.
Prophets are continually ‘speaking’ God’s word to a faithless people who set
aside God’s ways for their own benefit. Jesus is even more to the point with
his sarcastic irony towards the religious elite concerning the pretense of
washing hands to be clean. The assumed orthodoxy, in his day, called for
ceremonial washing before eating. Jesus says this is an absurd charade because what
really counts is a clean heart. Those today that wave the banner of “we’re
orthodox and you’re not,” need to seriously consider the condition of their
hearts, rather than inspecting the hands of everyone else.
Read More...
Read Less...
Faith in Christ is a personal “project;”
not an end to the journey, but its beginning.
Read More...
Read Less...
Biblical interpretation,
in the best sense of the art and practice, has been rightly focused on God, the
text, and the reader. Recently, culture has been fittingly added to this trio,
but it seems to me that there is at least one other consideration that will
help us better interpret the biblical story; and that is the natural world. If
we leave out this feature, our interpretations will be less sufficient and
perhaps even more wrongheaded than they would be otherwise.
Read More...
Read Less...
We live and die in the midst of brokenness and
beauty. They both engage us deeply with an insightful truth: life is like this.
Our world and our lives, as it were, are cut in two. This tension permeates
creation and us as part of it. Looking outside and then inside reminds us that
this is the way it is. Sometimes there’s lament and sometimes there’s praise,
yet both are woven together. One never effaces the other. Faced with this
reality, we long for transformation and the gift of resolution, where
brokenness is absolved and beauty alone remains.
Read More...
Read Less...
No narrative is fully
explanatory and totally complete. In this sense, metanarratives do not exist.
Be they scientific, theological, or philosophical – all fall short of being
able to give us that much sought after “meta” that constantly escapes our
grasp. And it’s a good thing it does. To live spiritual lives in this regard
means to embrace the “sufficiently given,” and to let go of the dreams and
illusions of that which tempts us towards the more than is available for right now.
Read More...
Read Less...
Christology has spent so much time on whether and
how the Christ is divine and/or human, obviously an important matter, that it
has unfortunately often underplayed or at least not given enough attention to
the cosmic Christ. A Christ without the cosmos is not the Christ of the
biblical or natural world informers.
Read More...
Read Less...
Now that we have become more aware of ourselves as
part of an emerging and evolving creation nested within a vast array of
galaxies, our interpretations of early Genesis are going to have to interact
with this data if we are to have a better understanding of God and human
origins. Our book From Evolution to Eden proposes some fresh possibilities for
your consideration. Check it out.
Read More...
Read Less...
