A great deal of the Hebrew Bible consists of Jewish reflections on a period of time where many of the citizens of Judah were deported by the Nebuchadnezzar II, king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar had attacked Jerusalem, put it under siege, and destroyed it. Not only did he burn the city, he also destroyed the Temple, which was the center of worship for the people of Judah. The destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the people from the... Read more

I awoke Sunday morning and got ready to go to church, where I teach the Junior High Sunday school class. We were going to talk about Blind Bartimaeus from Mark 10:46-52. And I was excited. The prayer of Bartimaeus forms the backbone of the central devotion of the eastern hesychastic piety, which seeks to teach the heart to pray not just the mouth or the mind. I was going to talk to my students about what it means to live... Read more

Its that time again. The winter is beginning to fade, flowers are blooming, and TV stations everywhere are being pumped with a 24 hour assault of political mud-slinging. Yes, you know what that means; the country is deep in the thralls of another election year. Airwaves have become battlefields. We are being constantly bombarded with sound bites, statistics and political branding. Candidates are closely monitoring where they stand on the political spectrum of “left” vs “right.” Each potential politician attempts... Read more

Lamentations is one of my favorite books in the Old Testament. It is a book of highly structured poetry that focuses on the wailing, mourning and, of course, lamentation or Jewish refugees. I love the way that the author is able to express deep, raw, human suffering and still maintain an aesthetic beauty. It was written as a reflection on the pain of being a displaced people, who are theologically frustrated, socially disrupted and left to drift without a clear... Read more

  Have you heard of the documentary in the works “Jesus, Don’t Let Me Die Before I’ve Had Sex”? I think this is an extremely important topic, and a provocative project. It seeks to discuss three questions What were your experiences surounding sex in the church  (if you are a minister like me) What do you teach about sex? How did the church get to where it is today regarding sex? (a little history and such) How would YOU answer... Read more

A few days ago I posted a video which I called “Possibly the Best Use of Social Media I have Ever Seen.” I watched the video, I believed that their use of media was commendable and I thought it was worthwhile to share what they were doing. Since then there has been some controversy surrounding the organization that produced the video called “Invisible Children”. The controversy has revolved around the fact that some people don’t believe enough of the IC... Read more

No conversation on the theology of the Early Church on the Cross would be complete without an examination of the writings of Athanasius. This theological giant wrote a generation before Augustine and was, in part, responsible for Augustine’s own conversion. Athanasius’ book On the Incarnation was written as a tome in favor of traditional understandings of the person of Jesus and His work on the cross in the face or a rising tide of Arianism that was on the verge... Read more

KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo. Read more

If Origen’s central concern was God’s desire to unify man to Himself, Augustine’s central concern was God’s love for humanity. We have already looked at the many and varied images that are employed by Augustine as he sought to show how the cross was used by God in Christ to accomplish the redemptive work of salvation. It is now necessary to turn our attention to the underlying theology that guided all of these images. Augustine’s theology seemed to have developed... Read more

As you read through the various perspective on the theology of the Cross in among the Church Fathers there are a number of things that may stick out to the attentive reader. Fist you may notice that there is little to no discussion about salvation that surrounds what has come to be the central understanding of salvation among many Christians today, which sees Jesus as vicarious satisfaction of God’s wrath. Jesus is not seen as taking on a penalty for... Read more