Is God a capitalist? (John Locke and the Romans Road)

December 10, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

One of the theories Doug Campbell advances in The Deliverance of God is that the “Romans Road” account of salvation which has dominated American evangelical Christianity for the past half-century cannot really be blamed on Martin Luther or John Calvin. The Romans Road is paved through the reconfiguration of the Reformers’ theology to fulfill the “decision for Christ” salvation formula of Billy Graham, Bill Bright, and all the sidewalk pamphleteers of the Four Spiritual Laws, who are more indebted to... Read more

Isaiah 11: making lions into lambs (a sermon in slides)

December 9, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

I’ve decided to keep things simple. Here is the audio from this Saturday’s sermon: And here are my slides. [slideshow] Read more

Romans 4: Believing promises, obeying contracts, and retribution

December 8, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

One of the struggles I have with the word “covenant” is that it seems to be used to describe two entities which are quite different: God’s unconditional, unilateral promise to Abraham and the elaborate set of rules and practices given to the Israelites in the Torah. In Romans 4, Paul pits these two “covenants” against each other in order to radically redefine what it means to be God’s people. Paul argues that God’s people are more essentially those who share... Read more

A law unto themselves: virtuous pagans in Romans 2

December 7, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

I’ve been struggling through the beastliest book about the beastliest book in the Bible: Doug Campbell’s 1000 pager on Romans called The Deliverance of God. Campbell has been pummeling the exegetical claims of the Four Spiritual Laws gospel of Bill Bright (aka “decision for Christ,” “sinner’s prayer,” “getting saved,” etc) that has become such a brilliantly successful commodity in the evangelical salvation industrial complex that most of today’s evangelicals cannot really imagine any other purpose for Christianity. What’s interesting is that... Read more

From fear and trembling to refuge (Psalm 2)

December 6, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

I have always had a particular attraction to Philippians 2:12, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” partly because it creates a crisis for evangelicals with a formulaic “decision for Christ” account of salvation. I do believe that justification by faith is a core part of our salvation, but I also think that δικάιοω (justify) means “make just” more than “declare just” in a way that the English language screws up with the word “justification.” Though we need to... Read more

Biblical literalism + magisterial inertia = sacramental Pelagianism?

December 5, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

I’ve been reading through Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings in which he spends a whole lot of time arguing emphatically why unbaptized infants deserve to go to hell because of Adam’s sin. It seems like the damnation of babies was a huge sticking point for Pelagius and his followers and part of why they were inclined to say that the doctrine of original sin was ridiculous. The core of Augustine’s argument against Pelagius rests upon a literal interpretation of John’s two verses... Read more

If I were to make a Christian hip-hop/electronica album…

December 4, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

Then my artist name would be εξουθενημενος and my album would be בן בלי שם (both of these words roughly translate to “The Nobody” because God refines my art by making people ignore it). I used to have a rock band seven years ago called the Junior Varsity Superheroes. I learned how to navigate the local rock scene and we did pretty well. Hip-hop is very much a second language to me; I learned how to rap because I was a... Read more

Jesus come back ('cause we've gotten off track)

December 4, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

This is Advent translated into hip-hop for Christians who are able to admit that we don’t always do a good job of taking up our cross to follow Jesus and want to try again to serve our king by marching for His kingdom. Lyrics are below. (more…) Read more

Why worship without justice dishonors God (Isaiah 1:10-20)

December 3, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

Isaiah 1:10-20 is a sobering prophetic passage in which God reams out the Israelites for thinking that they can honor Him while mistreating the most vulnerable of His people. We play the same game the ancient Israelites did. So many Christians today abstract their vertical relationship with God from their horizontal relationships with their neighbors and even pit the vertical against the horizontal. This is why I’m very suspicious of people who make a big fuss over glorifying God in... Read more

Blueprints don't make people worship

December 1, 2012 By Morgan Guyton

For the last month, I’ve been reading David Bentley Hart’s Beauty of the Infinite, which is one of the most profound and difficult texts I’ve read. Hart uses the theology of Gregory of Nyssa and other sources to talk about the relationship between our desire and God’s beauty. On the first weekend in December, Rachel Held Evans spoke to our annual Virginia United Methodist youth retreat about “living in the questions” as a way of understanding our faith. The Saturday... Read more