Even being suspicious of oneself about having the ability to believe in God is embedded in trusting this suspicion. If it turns out that we are such people of trust, which I believe is the case (we can’t escape trusting), I’d wager the question that has to be addressed is whether what and who we trust merits the designation “trustworthy.”
Friday, August 29, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Thursday Thought – August 28
To attempt to make a work of art without intentionality is like hiking up to 8,000 meters from the valley floor and back down, without training.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Living Spiritual Rhythms–August 27
Imagining Jesus walked around on dusty roads in Galilee and had encounters with Nicodemus in Jerusalem at night and the Samaritan woman in Sychar at noon is not the same as believing these actually took place. Imagining does not equate either unbelief or belief. When considering these orientations, therefore, we are indebted to other informers coming into play, which help us critique the imaginative falser and affirm the imaginatively truer.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Reflection for the Week–August 25
It doesn’t seem to make much sense that God would be angry or threatened when humans accomplish good things. After all, this is one of the chief reasons why we exist. In fact, a key feature of the creational mandate is that humans would step forward and represent God in this manner. When we do this well, as evidently sometimes happens, God should not mind. He may even applaud the accomplishment with both hands. Well done! But I guess we’re not quite sure what to do with this possibility. Usually, we’re told that it is inappropriate to value what we accomplish. Part of the logic of this view is that when we accomplish something good, it can lead to arrogance or idolatry. Yet, I would want to argue that while this is sometimes the case, it isn’t necessarily so. That is, we do have other options. Take this example. Keep accomplishing good, but steer clear of arrogance and idolatry. When we do so, we partially fulfill our Creator’s call. This means there seems to be a place and space to see our accomplishments of good as valuable, without them turning into something that is anti-God.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Friday Musings – August 22
While the narrative of beliefs and language has long and unsettled controversies and complexities, this is one basic, yet profound way of configuring a proposal. Beliefs are dependent on language, but not exclusively constructed by it. Both the poles of Realism (no dependence) and Idealism (full dependence), in the previous formulation, are marginalized – kept at bay – in the wager that there is more to beliefs than either can sufficiently explain. To attempt to avoid polarization in these discussions is like needing to duck when a totalizer is thrown at you – necessary – phew, another streamer avoided.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Thursday Thoughts – August 21
The neuro “event” of the optics of the other prepares the way for encounter. This story, recounted prior to an express “act” of contact, opens up therefore a rich, fabulous, and fragile invitation that unveils the suspense of possibilities for trust and suspicion.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Living Spiritual Rhythms–August 20
Deeply engraved with complexity and mysteriously forged by extravagance, the drama of the biblical and natural world informers presents significant challenges for readers, taking us to the limits of our imagination. Pushing reality to the edges of perception raises questions and issues that mustn’t be ignored. To take each informer seriously means being open to learning and embracing truth wherever it is to be found.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Monday Thought - August 18
For all the remarkable accomplishments of humanity, to still not be able to defeat racism is horrific.
Reflection for the Week–August 18
There are at least two ways a crisis of hope may express itself. First, pessimism: cynicism overtakes us and we decide to take matters into our own hands. Second, optimism: naïve idealism saturates us and we decide that God will resolve it all for us. Neither of these false options has much to do with a Christian point of view and both will leave us empty. Yet, we may tend to spend significant amounts of time and energy floating from pessimism or optimism, or attempting to solidify and barricade ourselves in one perspective or the other. Never this simple, life with God will challenge these polarizations, and in so doing refigure the false options into growing opportunities for truly engaging in community with God, ourselves, others, and the world.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Friday Musings – August 15
Many Christians rant and rave about the dangers and failures of philosophy, but their soft-headed and hard-hearted theology is doing more damage in promoting blindness, than many a philosophical orientation ever could.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Thursday Thought - August 14
When ignorance, put forward with a tireless vehemence, becomes the only acceptable form of humility and all else is fiction, our cultures are moving awfully close to arrogance.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Living Spiritual Rhythms–August 13
It is crucially important to acknowledge that art needs ethics, but it is equally significant to realize that ethics needs art. Neither art or ethics or anything else, it appears, can go it on its own. Dialogue will bring us closer to what’s real and true, unveiling the avant-garde, while monologue, even though in vogue, cuts us off from the surplus of that which is.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
What’s the Time?
As we’re again increasingly facing the horror of wars and genocides, not to mention other travesties, it is important to attempt to understand what time it is. Considering all the talk about the end of the world, if you’re interested, you may want to read my book Living Apocalypse. I hope this book offers a better interpretation of where we are and how to decode something of what lies ahead, and in doing so promotes a faith-keeping way of life and action.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Reflection for the Week–August 11
If all is subsumed under God, the integrity of a risky, yet functional natural world that God made is in danger of becoming irrelevant. This proposed creational orientation does not set out to under signify the Divine, but rather it sets out to embrace the credibility of the created as given, which allows it a mysterious degree of independence.
Friday, August 8, 2014
Friday Musings – August 8
Let’s beware of the potential problems in our own views, before too quickly critiquing those of others.
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