Grace transforms Third, grace transforms. The GodLife means GraceLife, and GraceLife means God’s grace transforms. From the moment Jesus uttered his first declaration that the kingdom of God was now at work he may as well have said people and lives will be transformed. One backwater fisherman named Peter now has a monstrous church named after him in the heart of Rome. One young Galilean girl became the mother of Jesus and for the first two centuries of America’s history the... Read more
It is common to hear Christians express concern about the slippery slope. The image is of a peak, or perhaps a plateau or mesa on which we are safe – but to step away is to risk all. In the discussion of science and faith there can be a fear that exploring the issues, asking questions, begins a slow or precipitous descent. This often comes up in the conversation on this blog – a real concern for where a line... Read more
I posted last week on a comment suggesting that I view Genesis 1-11 as “just collected stories.” The statement surprised me because I do not view Genesis as “just” collected stories – they are arranged and edited for a purpose and we need to study them carefully for that purpose and meaning. We are not looking for truth amidst error. The first comment on the post came back and refined the question a bit – in a fashion we would... Read more
Grace liberates Second, grace liberates. Humans have the gift of enslavement. We enslave ourselves to our nonsense, we enslave others to our own nonsense, and we enslave the world to our nonsense. A good example of nonsense is cynicism. Cynicism trades in tearing others down. When we see Obama, we think power. When we think of Europe, we think sleepy secularization. When we think of megachurches, we think of consumerism. When we think of teenagers, we think of drugs and... Read more
Three articles have been brought to my attention recently that are worth some discussion. The first two from Inside Higher Ed by Timothy Larson of Wheaton and Adam Kotsko at Kalamazoo College. (HT EG) The third article is an interview of Mark Noll, Professor of History at Notre Dame, as part of the Patheos series on The Future of Evangelicalism. First Timothy Larson’s contribution: No Christianity Please, We’re Academics. Larson relates a couple of anecdotes, one from his own experience... Read more
The Neo-Evangelical Coalition Breakdown Why has the coalition broken down? I don’t know for sure, but I think the following two are contributing factors: First, some evangelicals who were nurtured in fundamentalism never really softened enough to be big tent evangelicals. They simply cooperated as long as it was the best American evangelicalism had to offer. Such folks never really were comfortable with or welcoming of the broader reaches of the neo-evangelical coalition, whether it was the charismatics or liturgics... Read more
Grace overwhelms First, grace overwhelms injustice. Grace sizes things up with laser-beam accuracy. Grace diagnoses you and me as “sinners” in that you and I have each committed scads of injustices, some of them intentionally and some of them not. It sees us as “unjust” and, instead of sending us into the frying pant to get scorched, grace sees through us to what God wants us to be and forgives. Grace scans us completely and it sees the dreams we... Read more
Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions by Rachel Held Evans Zondervan ISBN 978-0310293996 Reviewed by Justin Topp, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology, North Park University Blog: http://scienceandtheology.wordpress.com/ and Twitter: JustinTopp The biggest complaint my students have about me is that my tests are too hard. I use a variety of different types of questions, but the majority are either multiple-choice or essay questions. Students have a clear preference between the two. “Why can’t you make... Read more
Pete Enns has had an interesting series on BioLogos discussing the meaning of the phrase “Image of God” (You will find it here: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three). From the Part One of his series: Some understand image of God to mean those qualities that make us human, for example: possessing a soul, higher-order reasoning, self-consciousness, consciousness of God and the ability to have a relationship with him. This seems like a good definition, since only humans are... Read more
Golgotha morphs into grace The simplest message then of the kingdom dream of Jesus is that Golgotha morphed into Grace. What was experienced as hideous injustice morphed into glorious justice. Some think they can explain just how everything works and they can keep on trying and I’ll keep on listening. But so far all I can say is that somehow and someway that cross mysteriously morphs into grace. Somehow person after person looks to the cross and finds forgiveness... Read more
Jesus Creed
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In