I feel a need to complete Sharon Baker’s challenging book, though I think we’ve talked through her topics (Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught About God’s Wrath and Judgment). In the end, Sharon Baker is a universalist as I read her book. Humans hear in the now the grace of God in Jesus Christ, and only those in Christ will be eternally saved. But, she’s got a few major points to make: First, we will be judged — through... Read more
Timothy Dalrymple, at Patheos, has a remarkable sketch of the emergence of Tea Party ideas back in the Bush era. Let it be said that the Tea Party is not just a post-Obama reactionary movement; commentators who want to blame it on anti-Obama are mistaken. I begin with his opening and finish off with Dalrymple’s concluding points, but I’d recommend you read the whole thing: The tea started brewing under Bush. It’s important that Democrats and Republicans alike understand this.... Read more
As Kris and I walked through the high school parking lot late Sunday afternoon we found a quarter, and then another, and then we got to chatting about our habit. For years Kris and I have walked daily, and we developed a habit of keeping our eyes down enough to spot coins. We often walk so the sun, if a coin is on the ground, will reveal its presence. We estimate we find about 30-40 dollars a year. This year... Read more
Speaking of a new kind of evangelism prompts me to post this Q&A of Jason Byassee with Tom Wright: Q: What does your understanding of Jesus’ bodily resurrection mean for how we treat people along those lines of justice and justification? One of the great things that I began to realize when I was working on Jesus’ resurrection and on the New Testament’s vision and the early fathers’ vision of the whole creation renewed — think of Irenaeus and people... Read more
In the last ten years I’ve been asked hundreds of times “How does one evangelize someone into the kingdom vision of Jesus?” The fundamental problem here is that many today grew up on a classic form of evangelism, and often began their own first steps of faith through that evangelism. That form of evangelism is composed of the following elements: God’s love and holiness, human sinfulness and inevitable condemnation, Jesus’ atoning death which satisfies God’s holiness, absorbs God’s wrath, forgives... Read more
Peter Leithart, a polymath and a compelling thinker and writer, is laying down a challenge to the Anabaptists of this world and to the progressive Christians of this world — anyone who critiques Christendom, the nation-church connection that begins in earnest with Constantine and carried on for centuries. Leithart’s challenge does not lack nuance, but it also does not fail to make potent claims. Leithart’s new book may well become a watershed argument, and here’s one way he puts it:... Read more
Since I began studies in theological education there has been only one go-to book about the apostle Peter: Oscar Cullmann’s Peter : Disciple, Apostle, Martyr : A Historical and Theological Study. Cullmann’s days are now officially and finally over. We are now in the era of Martin Hengel, whose latest book will undoubtedly replace and reframe Cullmann’s book: Saint Peter: The Underestimated Apostle. Cullmann’s book was shaped by Roman Catholic and Protestant issues. We are, so it seems to me,... Read more
I don’t know if you saw this, but it’s worth your read — and don’t throw eggs at me. A woman lived for two weeks within the script and culture and diet and customs of the 1950s housewife, and she wrote about it. I read the post and thought it was interesting. This is her 11th lesson; you can go to the link to see #1s-10. (Intro post with all posts linked.) How about you? What do you think? And... Read more
Bob Smietana has written the only expose I’ve seen of the underbelly of the anti-Muslim movement in the USA. I encourage you to sit down for ten minutes or so and read the whole article. Here’s how it starts: Steven Emerson has 3,390,000 reasons to fear Muslims. That’s how many dollars Emerson’s for-profit company — Washington-based SAE Productions — collected in 2008 for researching alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas terrorism. The payment came from the Investigative Project on... Read more
Here is the second part of the Barna Report, this one concerning perceived negative contributions: When asked to identify what they thought were the negative contributions of Christians to American society in recent years, the most frequent response was violence or hatred incited in the name of Jesus Christ. One out of five Americans mentioned such vitriolic attitudes. This was most likely to be mentioned by people associated with non-Christian faiths (35%) and by evangelicals (31%). Three other responses generated... Read more
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