A quiz I developed (in discussion with others): For some reason of late, I have become fascinated with the portions of the Bible wedon’t tend to read, passages like the story of Jephthah. Or how God was on the verge of killing Moses for not circumcising his son, and his wife stepped in, did what needed to be done, and tossed the foreskin at Moses’ feet, and God let him alone. I’m curious why one of my friends dismisses the... Read more
Christena Cleveland: Now that I’m “35 and alone,” I’m beginning to formally construct a liberation theology of singleness. This article is just a beginning — and I’m hoping for feedback from single people. Even though the term “liberation theology” makes some people (especially conservative Christians) uncomfortable, I’ve chosen to use it because liberation theologies seek to free people who have been oppressed by dominant theologies. Liberation theologies accomplish this by uncovering the ways in which the oppressed people’s identities have been tarnished... Read more
By Jonathan Storment: I have been blogging for the past few weeks through James K.A. Smith’s great book “You Are What You Love.” Last week, I talked about Smith’s point that most of us probably aren’t aware of what we really love. This sounds like a strong claim. Of course, I know what I love, it’s my love! But Smith would argue that most of our behavior and thought is shaped by cultural forces of which we are largely unaware.... Read more
By Jason Micheli: Several years ago the church I serve opened the doors of its youth wing to welcome the members of a local mosque. Their own facility was undergoing construction and they needed a place to offer their Friday Jummah prayers. Even though many of the Muslims who came to pray in our building were the same people who drove cabs in our neighborhood, owned the service stations that inspect our cars, cared for our aging parents in the... Read more
Sarah Grossman: At a time when many U.S. schools are failing students of color, one school stands out as an unusual success. St. Benedict’s Prep, an all-boys preparatory school in Newark, has a graduation rate of 98 percent, compared to a national rate of 82 percent. But when you realize that the majority of St. Benedict’s students are low-income male students of color, the numbers become groundbreaking. Nationwide around one in four black, Latino and low-income students does not graduate high school,... Read more
Owen Strachan, from Twitter 4.11.2016. Shall we discuss this understanding of the gospel? Read more
All was going along great. Adam, Eve, Garden, God. And then, appearing from nowhere, the serpent was in the garden. The first verse of Genesis 3 introduces the character. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Christians are quick to identify the serpent with “the devil” or Satan, but this wasn’t... Read more
Even a quick reading of the Gospel of Mark leads one to what scholars have called the “Messianic” Secret, those passages when Jesus tells others not to tell anyone about him or what they have seen Jesus do. Standard explanation: for strategical reasons, namely to avoid a premature crucifixion or to precipitate the movement before its time, Jesus silences others until the right moment. Some would contend that moment is not until the crucifixion when the centurion confesses Jesus as the... Read more
I once heard of a well known Christian leader/theologian who claimed this: “leadership is the imposition of the leader’s will on others.” Michelle Lee-Barnewall would disagree, and do so quite firmly. Imposing one’s will on others flatly contradicts cruciform existence. In our previous post on Lee-Barnewall’s book Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian we examined her sketch of the history and culture at work in understanding the relationship of females and males in the church and society. In today’s post we want... Read more
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