Last weekend, I preached on wrestling with the Bible. We looked at the Tower of Babel story as an example and tried to interpret it first taking everything at face value and then with the love-oriented approach to interpretation that Augustine wrote about in his Doctrina Christiana: “If it seems to you that you have understood the divine scriptures, or any part of them, in such a way that by this understanding you do not build up this twin love... Read more
It made me really sad and a little bit frightened to read about the latest gun tragedy: a man getting shot and killed in Florida for texting his three year old daughter during the previews of a movie. I’ve definitely had my phone out during the previews of movies before, but I always put it away before the movie. I know I would get angry responses and it’s not going to change anyone’s mind to talk about whether people should... Read more
Thanks very much for your responses to my last post on Biblical inerrancy. Though some were a bit snarky, they were actually quite helpful to my sermon preparation process, which was my goal with the post. What has emerged out of that wrestling is that there seem to be three ways of understanding Biblical authority, which basically amount to three interpretations of the most cited proof-text for Biblical authority: 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching,... Read more
This weekend, we will be wrestling with what it means for the Bible to be our authoritative guide for how to live as Christians when some things in the Bible were written in a different era when people didn’t have the scientific information they do today. Some Christians hold to a position of Biblical inerrancy, which means different things to different people but basically means that the Bible has to be without error in any claims that it makes like... Read more
I knew I was going to read something that would rankle me in RC Sproul’s The Holiness of God. Well sure enough I did. I wanted to articulate a rhetorical move that Sproul makes, because it’s common among writers and preachers who share his theology. Sproul talks in his book about Rudolph Otto’s term mysterium tremendum (fearful mystery), which he applies to the holiness of God. It describes a gap of incomprehensibility between us and God. But what Sproul does... Read more
At the basilica’s Monday mass, the epistle reading was from 1 John 4, which includes: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” It was a sobering reminder to me that not all the “inspiring” voices in my head are from God. Even if I have had legitimate prophetic convictions before, that doesn’t mean that my compulsive urge to weigh in... Read more
In my sermon this weekend, I preached about Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush when God tells Moses His name. Did you know that God’s name is constantly being uttered all around us? Listen to the sermon to find out more about that mystery. Read more
Leviticus 10:10 says, “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” These two verses describe two different frameworks for understanding holiness, which I would term moral cleanliness and spiritual purity. Moral cleanliness understands holiness as faithfully following God’s rules and boundaries because it pleases God for us to follow His rules. Spiritual purity understands holiness as purging... Read more
The amnesia of America culture always fascinates me particularly with regard to the things that are perceived to be “threats to the American family.” When anti-gay Christians are asked why they make a big deal out of homosexuality, the standard response is to say that the gay people were the one who made it a big deal and they simply offered a “Biblical” response when asked. There are many different legitimate personal stories that overlap in sociological phenomena, but it’s... Read more
The Institute of Religion and Democracy just published a letter from a retired professor Walter Benjamin to a sitting bishop whose identity wasn’t named. Though portions of this letter got me churned up, I thought it would be a helpful test of my New Year’s resolutions to see if I could engage it in a loving and truthful way. Dr. Benjamin’s letter reflects the fact that he grew up in a very different time than I did. I disagree with... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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