“As Jesus hung upon the cross of Calvary, it was literally the sin of the world that was hanging there at that moment of history. The people who physically saw that crucifixion, whether or not they were Christ’s followers, saw that it was not the justice but the injustice of man that was being carried out that day. In the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Christ, man’s sin was more than visible: man’s disobedience to God, man’s rejection of truth,… Read more

“Things fall apart”, and one thing that rapidly seems to be disintegrating is the Evangelical identity as typically understood in the second half of the 20th century. Here I’ve been talking of late about the “radical middle”. On the Parchment and Pen blog, there has been a discussion of what other terms, such as “historic Evangelical”, might allow one to distinguish one’s views from those of others (such as Joel Osteen). At Sojourners the term “red letter Christian” has been… Read more

“To demythologize the ascension is not to deny that Jesus “went to heaven”; it is simply to find a way of expressing this in language which takes it out of the realm of current or future space research” (James D. G. Dunn, in his article “Myth” in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove: IVP, 1992) p.568). Read more

Next semester I will be teaching my course on “Paul and the Early Church” again. The last time I taught it, I got students to share the work, researching select passages from a given letter and then making their summaries available. This time, I’d like to try something different. I’ve looked at a number of overviews of Paul’s life and several shorter academic commentaries, but I still don’t feel as though I’ve identified ones that are clearly appropriate for an… Read more

“An event that has been just around the corner for a thousand years is a non-event. Thinking Christians should not behave as if the Parousia was a genuine possibility” (Anthony and Richard Hanson, in Reasonable Belief (Oxford University Press, 1981) p.196).For those not theologically trained, the Parousia is a technical term for the ‘second coming of Jesus’. The first time I read this statement by the Hansons I was shocked that someone could say something like this so bluntly, without… Read more

They have released a title for the premier episode from LOST’s upcoming season. “The Beginning of the End.” That’s a great way to keep interest and get speculation started up again, but the title doesn’t really tell us anything.I did come across something that was significant in some book or other that I read recently. Fans of LOST will know that the name of the person whose funeral Jack went to in the flash forward sequences in last season’s finale… Read more

Many thanks to the blog SF Signal for sharing this. It has no obvious theological, religious, philosophical or academic implications. It is just funny, that’s all. Read more

Apparently, it is all in the links. A new study has attempted to rank blogs in these terms. Since we can only read so many blogs, the question was which 100 would you pick that would give you an overall impression of what’s going on in the blogosphere generally.That’s why, rather than write something myself, I’m sharing this link. And this one from a science blogger who is persuaded it is bad math, since it lists his old (now defunct)… Read more

What David did (in particular the infamous story about him and Bathsheba), many of our national leaders have done, and what happened to David has happened to lots of politicians. It would be quite plausible to suggest that the stories about David were at least partially composed with this audience of rulers and government officials in mind. But what were they expected to learn from these stories? I am going to make some seemingly plausible, and at the same time… Read more

Blogger seems to have added a feature that allows you to be e-mailed when there are follow-ups to your comments. This is good news! May it turn this blog into the forum for ongoing discussion that I have always hoped it might be! Read more