Besides the hideous treatment that many Christians inflict upon those who openly express their homosexuality — which I simply cannot understand and which I cannot tolerate as Christian behavior, perhaps the next “baddest” thing is that Christians treat the Bible as if it were a law book on moral behavior. So this post examines the context of what the Bible says about homosexuality. |inline Read more
A test I give to my Jesus of Nazareth students at the beginning and end of the semester, which I may have put on this blog before, derives from the North England Institute for Christian Education. This test asks questions of you and then of Jesus and, if done over a big group of people, will prove this: that we make Jesus in our own image rather than let ourselves be shaped by Jesus’ image. That is, everyone wants Jesus... Read more
It ought to be fairly easy to see that one cannot serve two masters, as Jesus states in Matthew 6:24. It ought to be, but it isn’t because the human worship-system contain an ever-ready capacity to steer off course. Parents find it hard to make good decisions on how much time to spend with children; spouses choose work over family; families have a hard time figuring out to go to church or not; employers find it difficult to be as... Read more
I watched some of Larry King’s program tonight, and observed the discussion between the straight seminary president, the gay movie star and the gay (former) mayor in Wyoming. What struck me most was the way each made moral judgments and decisions — the seminary president by appeal to the Bible, and the movie star and the mayor by appeal to both experience and to the US Constitution. I will be blogging on this topic soon, but the issue that must... Read more
Rodney Stark, noted sociologist of religion, has contended in a series of publications that Mormonism is well on its way to becoming a world religion. (Stark, The Rise of Mormonism, Columbia University Press.) Stark predicts their numbers will rival other world religions. Gerald McDermott, friend and exceptional American historian, disagrees. |inline Read more
It is pretty easy for Christians to skip along reading “the eye is the lamp of the body” and not give one ounce of consideration to what is being said: How, we should be asking, can an eye be seen as a “lamp”? And, if an eye is good, how does that make the “body full of light”? And if an eye is bad, how can it be that the body is full of darkness? Therein lies an ancient physiological... Read more
Many of you know that I have published a book on conversion, Turning to Jesus, and that I have also done two studies of conversion of a more particular nature: one on why Evangelicals convert to Roman Catholicism (see sidebar in Studies I have online) and one on why Jews convert to faith in Jesus as Messiah (forthcoming this winter/spring). I have been trying to collect stories on why Roman Catholics become Evangelicals, and this is where I need your... Read more
I gave a paper some five or six years ago at North Park on the nature of a Christian college, especially as it applies at my school. The exploration of a Christian education through the categories of monotheism, polytheism, and henotheism is suggestive for me, and I wonder what you might think of it. The paper is also available now through the sidebar. For some reason, the .pdf files comes out backward. If you know why, go ahead and explain... Read more
Jesus is both pragmatic and utopian in Matt 6:19-21. In a day when wealth and riches meant oppression of the poor and a day when poverty, if handled properly, meant piety, Jesus summons people to follow him who will trans-evaluate possessions. Possessions then and now were and are a source of pleasure and a focus of our efforts. Think of the joy that many of us have when we get something new. As for us, we are quite glad that... Read more
I recently read Rebecca’s Revival by Jon F. Sensbach, a professor of history at the University of Florida. Rebecca Freundlich Protten was the first ordained black woman in Western Christianity (she was ordained in Europe). Born in Africa, enslaved in the Caribbean, she eventually made her way to St. Thomas, was set free (probably) because she became a Christian, and then fell under the spell of the Moravian missionary, Friedrich Martin. |inline Read more
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