Continuing my series on theology of the atonement, we continue discussion of the issue of a blood sacrifice. The other day I noted that if God had demanded the blood sacrifice of a perfect, sinless human, he would not be all that different from Pagan deities who demanded blood to appease them. Many, of course, find this hard to accept. For those of us who grew up with the Penal Substitution understanding of the atonement, the aspect that God was the... Read more
I grew up on the Three Stooges. Saturday mornings on the farm my grandfather would take a rare break from work and often sit down to watch them with me, in what has become a fond memory of my grandfather. I’m sure by the time I hit puberty I had seen probably every stooges episode ever made. And when I had kids, I passed on my love of the stooges. Except, English wasn’t our primary language in the home at the... Read more
As we now turn a corner during the season of Lent, we begin to look towards the climactic end of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Each year as we approach this season, I find myself rethinking the cross. Not whether or not it happened, but rethinking the significance. As the years have gone by and I have processed this in my own journey, I have come to believe that rethinking the cross– reexamining our atonement theology– might be one of... Read more
I might be wrong, but I think Christianity has a lot of cynics. Too many, perhaps. I believe that, because I am one of them and I notice there are a lot of people around the Internet who think like me. In fact, I make my living by writing books and blogs for them. Now, I think many of us have good reasons to be cynical– especially the progressive version of a Christian Cynic™. We’ve been burned. Lost churches. Shunned... Read more
For those of us who left a hell, fire, and brimstone Christianity, one of the critiques that gets levied at is us that we either ignore or downplay the wrath of God. To be honest, I think there’s some truth in that critique, and that it’s important for those of us here (wherever here is) to develop a vision of God’s wrath that is faithful to the narrative of Scripture, but one that also avoids the pitfalls of the version... Read more
Amber Cantorna didn’t date any boys growing up, but she didn’t think much of it. She had taken her purity vow and even sealed it with a ring– after that, she just assumed that God would simply place the right man in her life, at the right time. Except, he didn’t. In fact, at 23 she looked back and realized why she had never actually dated a guy: she was gay. She was also a devoted Christian (of the conservative flavor)... Read more
A fascinating new scientific theory about the beginning of the universe is now floating around: it’s not billions of years old after all. The new idea? The universe has eternally existed, and has no beginning. Until now the dominant scientific view is that, somewhere around 13 billion years ago, there was a single point which exploded (AKA, the “Big Bang”). This explosive moment marked the beginning of the universe– everything that exists was born from a single point they call the “singularity.” However,... Read more
How much of the news we watch is recycled coverage on the election? Is your Facebook newsfeed overrun with Trump this or Hillary that? I don’t know about you, but lately it seems like all the days have blurred together to the point where I can’t even remember the last time I wasn’t swimming in a sea of presidential election coverage. Certainly I’ve participated in some of that, and I think it’s important for Christians to be prophetic voices within culture. I’ve... Read more
(A guest post by Tracy Corey) Raised in a cult I heard, sensed, and observed things that just didn’t add up to me. My childhood was spent swimming in a sea of weirdness and abuse, smothered in Jesus language. Church leaders seemed to find a demon under every rock, or in every person if you didn’t conform perfectly. The leaders of the church personally came to families on Sundays to collect their tithes and mark them off the list, and they’d even show... Read more
There is a discussion to be had on America and guns. I think the average person gets this– I mean, it’s pretty hard not to. We have a proliferation of guns and near-daily acts of unspeakable death and violence committed with many of those guns. It seems only reasonable that we, as a nation, talk about common sense steps towards reducing all this violence. And, since this violence is typically committed with legally purchased guns, it’s also reasonable that we... Read more
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