#progGOD Challenge: Why an Incarnation?

November 28, 2012 By 52 Comments

Scores of theobloggers responded to the first #progGOD Challenge over the summer, in which I asked Progressive Christian bloggers to say something substantive about God.

It’s time for us to attack a new topic, just in time for Advent:

Why an Incarnation?

Last time I took some heat for (at first) banning poetry. I stand corrected. Of course poetry is an entirely appropriate way to express the theological truth of God’s incarnation in Christ. However, here’s a warning: it’s very easy to proclaim the beauty of the incarnation (witness the plethora of Advent and Christmas hymns).

Instead, I’m most interested in what the Incarnation tells us about God, human beings, creation, the Cosmos, the End Times, Heaven, Hell, salvation, or anything else…from a Progressive Christian perspective.

How it works is you write a post on your blog/Tumblr/Facebook or anywhere. Submit it in the comment section of this post, and please tweet it with the hashtag #progGOD. I will curate, and Deb and the Patheos team will assemble the responses into a page here on Patheos.

And I bet a lot of preachers will mine our submissions as they prepare their Christmas Eve sermons!

Filed Under: theology Tagged With: 52 Comments

Why Do We Need Baptism? [Questions That Haunt]

November 27, 2012 By 67 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

This week’s Questions That Haunt Christianity comes from a young pastor. Sam asks:

I am a young pastor in Chicago with the Evangelical Covenant. I just read your book A Better Atonement and I enjoyed it a lot. I’ve struggled with the doctrine of Original Sin for a long while, but I’ve been thinking about how this, if at all, changes my view of baptism. I don’t believe that original sin is necessary for baptism but as I try to formulate my sacramentology I thought I’d ask if you had any thoughts.

Filed Under: Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: , 67 Comments

God Is Not “Perfect” [Questions That Haunt]

November 23, 2012 By 46 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

Questions That Haunt Christianity continues this week with a question from frequent commenter, Lausten North:

If God just was, before time, before the universe, and he was perfect, why did he create the imperfect universe with us imperfect humans? If he wanted us to choose to love him, then he wasn’t really perfect before, he was lacking love in some way. If we are actually perfect as we are, then that is a strange re-definition of the word perfect. If you say there is a plan and we just can’t understand it, then you are just avoiding the question.

In a comment to the original post, Lausten clarifies:

Primarily, the question addresses the particular types of theology that assume unknowable perfection. In that theology, we can’t know God, we can only place our hopes in the glimpses of a better way that He gives us. So we can’t define perfect, other than as something beyond anything we know.

Certainly pain and bad design are examples of imperfection. The known physical universe requires a lot of death and destruction to continue with its creation. You could say that is a balance, but I consider it imperfect and incompatible with the existence of a loving God who claims to have performed the miracles found in the Bible.

Lausten, thanks both for the original question and the clarifier. I take it from your comments that you’re an atheist, and I’m particularly glad that you and some other atheists have begun reading this blog as a result of this series. At the very heart of your question is an assumption that you’ve stated in other comments: that Christianity is bedeviled with internal inconsistencies that ultimately undermine its claims on truth. But I think your question does something quite similar to that.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: , 46 Comments

Why Would a Perfect God Create an Imperfect Universe? [Questions That Haunt]

November 20, 2012 By 72 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

Our Question That Haunts Christianity comes this week from Lausten North. Lausten has racked up 300 comments on this blog. He’s a thoughtful skeptic who has been “extremely disappointed” with my answers in the series thus far. So I thought I’d reward his faithfulness to reading and commenting with a question all his own:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: 72 Comments

God Is Neither Warlike Nor Peaceful [Questions That Haunt]

November 19, 2012 By 51 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

Last week’s Questions That Haunt Christianity came from Shira, who asked a question that provoked an unprecedented number of comments for the series:

My question is this: How do Christian theologians deal with the fact that God is portrayed sometimes as a “man of war” who approves genocide and taking of women as war prizes, among other atrocities and sometimes as the “righteous judge” standing up for widows, orphans, and the strangers among us? I consider this a vital question because it seems to me that many people gravitate to one or the other of these ideas of God, and the actions in the world of these different groups are very distinct! I don’t know if you require a background, but I’m a Buddhist of Jewish background.

Thanks to all who commented. Here’s my response:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: bible, Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: , 51 Comments

Is God a God of Peace or a God of War? [Questions That Haunt]

November 13, 2012 By 160 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

This week’s Questions That Haunt Christianity continues a recent theme in the series about the very nature of God. It’s from Shira, who asks,

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: 160 Comments

God Allows Suffering Because Suffering Is Existence [Questions That Haunt]

November 9, 2012 By 33 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

After a week off for the election, it’s time to address Shelly’s Questions That Haunt Christianity, which I posted last Tuesday.

Shelly asked,

Why would God create humans (and animals) knowing what a vast number of them would suffer in this life? Does eternity really make up for a life of war, fear, hunger, or _______ (insert issue here). The typical response to this question is, “People could have lived in perfection as God created it, but they chose sin.” But that doesn’t answer the question. God would have known that people would sin. So why start the whole mess at all, even with the promise of a messiah?

There are over 100 responses to the question from readers. Now here’s my shot:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: 33 Comments

Franz Bibfeldt: The Most Important Theologian You’ve Never Heard Of

November 2, 2012 By 10 Comments

Franz Bibfeldt (1897- )

I love Franz Bibfeldt. I’m not talking eros or philios. I’m talking agape. That’s how much I love him.

Who is Franz Bibfeldt?, you ask. Only the most important theologian you’ve never heard of. Here, for example, is the story of Bibfeldt’s birth:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: theology 10 Comments

Why Did God Create Us If He Knew We’d Sin? [Questions That Haunt]

October 30, 2012 By 120 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

Time for another episode in our ongoing series, Questions That Haunt Christianity.

This week, Shelly asks,

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: 120 Comments

God Is Arbitrary, and That Is Terrifying [Questions That Haunt]

October 26, 2012 By 20 Comments

Questions That Haunt Christianity

Lisa Mamula posed the challenge this week for Questions That Haunt Christianity. She asked,

I’m a Christian, but I have lately been struggling with a question: Do I believe God is Good, or do I believe God is just good to me? I see my life as having been blessed and guided by God into many good things (great husband, amazing kids, food to eat, etc.), but I struggle to reconcile all these gifts with the lives of those in extreme suffering and poverty. I’m not sure how to trust God with my everyday, (relatively) minor needs like relief for sick kids or financial problems. Why would I be rescued, when God didn’t rescue Holocaust mothers who watched their babies used as target practice? I believe in God. I believe he is Good. But I don’t know why I believe that.

Lots of you left many interesting and thought-provoking comments, and Lisa chimed in as well. It’s been a great discussion to watch.

At the core of your question, Lisa, is how arbitrary are God’s actions of beneficence (or tragedy)? This is a question I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately, for it sits at the heart of the book I’m now writing, Why Pray?

It seems that we have a choice: God is either arbitrary and therefore terrifying, or God is predictable and impotent. Here’s what I mean:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Questions That Haunt, theology Tagged With: , , , 20 Comments