If I were a pastor or a youth pastor, if I were a small group in Texas, and if I lived within 500 miles of Laity Lodge — I’d do everything I could to get folks to spend a weekend retreat at this beautiful setting in the hill country of Texas. And I’d want to do this especially if I were working with youth and wanted them to get away and really get away. Quiet, great things to see, but... Read more
To love your neighbor as yourself is the foundation of the Torah.To show favortism toward the rich and against the poor, you are not acting in love.Not to love is to break the law.Therefore, those who break the law (of love) are classed as “transgressors.” That’s the logic of James. That’s the logic of love. In fact, James is radical about this. Notice these words in James 2:10: For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one... Read more
The fourth chapter of Darwin and the Bible: The Cultural Confrontation is a contribution by Martinez Hewlett and Ted Peters entitled The Science of Evolution and the Theology of Creation. Peters is a Lutheran theologian who has written on science and faith while Hewlett is a molecular biologist by training. This chapter rambles though a number of topics providing background that should prove useful to a student who is new to the idea of thinking through these issues. Hewlett and... Read more
The final chp of Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe is an odd one, but all the better for its oddity. The chp is written by Janet Martin Soskice, a Roman Catholic and Fellow at Jesus College in Cambridge. She argues that sometimes Trinitarian doctrine and worship are defended on grounds that are of questionable orthodoxy. She goes first to the Johannine Comma, the verse in 1 John 5:7 that says “For there are... Read more
Do you know about Robert Gelinas and his new book Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith ? There are very few books like this one — in fact, there is none. I really liked this book, and I will return to it over and over as the image shapes my own thinking. How are Christianity and theology and theologians like jazz? I place this book alongside Kevin Vanhoozer’s proposal of doctrine as drama; for Gelinas, Christianity itself is jazz... Read more
The next passage we deal with in James is 2:8-13, and it reveals that James — like his brother and then also like Paul and John — made direct use of the Shema + Lev 19:18, which I call the “Jesus Creed.” Notice these words from James 2:8-13: 8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law... Read more
One topic of conversation in our ministry household has been the subject of sermon illustrations and where they come from. Both my spouse and I find that people love it when you use real situations from your life to connect the truth with their lives. Sometimes simple things like the grocery checkout line, the traffic, etc. make you seem as common and normal as they are. Other times, there are topics from your family life that bring real life to... Read more
I’ve mentioned on this blog the word “anabaptist” and that I consider myself an anabaptist in theological orientation. Usually someone writes me and asks this question: What’s an anabaptist? Well, I say, they are the third wave of the Reformation — first the Lutherans and then the Reformed and then the (full reformation! with the) anabaptists and Menno Simons. (Not all agree, of course.) Their major representatives in the world today are the most radical form, the Amish and Hutterites,... Read more
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Read more
Chicago is for Spring Bikers: David Opderbeck weighs in on faith and missional theology. Erika’s suggestive post is worth your reading. And Jason Clark announces a new missional D.Min. effort he will direct. David Dunbar’s new piece in Missional Journal is an excellent description of how to re-shape seminary in a missional direction (look at 2009, 3 … 2… Everything Changes). I wasn’t aware this piece of mine on why evangelicals become Catholic was still online. (Does anyone know about... Read more
Jesus Creed
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