Romney on Culture?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

Mitt Romney recently found out a few things about culture and Middle East diplomacy, but both he and the press missed his biggest learning opportunity. Romney attributed Israel’s economic success to culture, and suggested that the same factor, culture, explained the Palestinian’s lack of economic success. At least some Palestinians said his remarks were racist, and lots of folks took him to task for ignoring other realities. A few might have wondered why such a successful country as Israel has... Read more

The Great Fear Conflation

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

The headlines last week said that 30% of Republicans believe that Obama is a Muslim. An actual increase since 2008. And this has been followed by various surveys (always publicized by self-proclaimed liberals) that conservatives are simply less intellectual, less smart, than liberals. I doubt it. Read down in an article on the recent PEW foundation survey and the picture is murkier than ignorance rather than intelligence. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/half-of-americans-do-not-know-the-presidents-religion/) Once of the surveyors suspects, given the data, that for Republicans the... Read more

Farewell to Jerusalem

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

Israel for 10 days. Reflections: Its early morning in the hotel, the last morning of this trip. We have seen angry hope, sad hope, resigned hope, cynical hope, confused hope, naïve hope, and possibly even hopeless hope. And we’ve see the parallel forms of hopelessness. In Tel Aviv we met, as I have met before, a city at once familiar and sad. Familiar because it could be any down-at-the-heal Eastern European city. And that includes the tree lined avenues with... Read more

Just Who are You?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

Jerusalem, my home for about 10 days, can look like some kind of costume drama, especially down in the old city. Muslim women in headscarves, or for that matter more conservative Jewish women in headscarves, are just a part. Military uniforms of various sorts are present – albeit discreetly for the most part. And various groups of tourists from around the world bring their own fashion sensibilities. But the real show is down by the wailing wall, where various conservative... Read more

Filling the Gaps in God – A Shared Language of Religious Difference

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

In my last blog I suggested that God doesn’t fill the gaps in human knowledge. To the contrary, we humans are the gaps in God, the places where God is alienated from God’s own full love and participation in creation. The gaps are created by human conflict and a failure to work together for the flourishing of God’s creation. A major reason for this is our propensity for inter-religious conflict. The causes of such conflict are many. In large part... Read more

The God Particle . . and the Gaps in God

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

There is only magazine or journal I read cover to cover every month, and that is Scientific American. Nor is this a new obsession. My first job out of high school was as a research assistant in a computer lab, programming in Fortran to solve complex integral equations in order to analyze satellite data. My first major was astronomy. True, I switched to history when I realized that I neither fully understood nor enjoyed complex mathematical analysis – which is... Read more

Divine Mandate, Dialogue Disaster?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

How do we enter into respectful dialogue with another religious viewpoint when that religious viewpoint won’t let us speak for ourselves? When it insists that it comprehensively understands our reality without reference to us? What do I mean? Let’s start with something interesting: “After the banned ‘Holy Islamic Sex’ (Seks Suci Islam) guide’s sizzling debut, the Obedient Wives’ Club (OWC) has launched another publication for Muslims titled ‘The Holy Spirit and Holy Islamic Sex Booklet’ (Risalah Roh Suci dan Seks... Read more

The Sub-Dom Complex in Religion

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

The logic of hegemony arises in part from the claim that a particular culture, worldview, and language have the privilege of being chosen by God to express God’s truth to humanity. In Malaysia two pieces of news. First came the circulation of a forged letter saying that if an opposition party won the next election they would turn the 60% Muslim country into a toadying Christian state. Then the announcement by the government that they would restrict the number of... Read more

Lost in Translation?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

Sunday morning. Christians gather for worship: meaningful fragments of hymns are offered, praise choruses are repeated to create a mood, Jesus songs inculcate pious devotion and warm affection,thematic preaching that tells people what they want to know, and prayers beseech God for help. The house is packed. Is the gospel in all its power finally being translated into contemporary language? In a previous blog I spoke of how translation, an essentially missional enterprise, is the key to the future of... Read more

Translation, not just Interpretation

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm By Robert Hunt

The crisis of the mainline Christian denominations has come about in large part because they hang on to a model of engagement with contemporary people that is no longer adequate. Pastors and church leaders who were taught to interpret the gospel so that it is relevant to the contemporary situation are finding this isn’t adequate to engage our society. Because our problem isn’t just making the gospel relevant, it is making the gospel comprehensible. In a previous blog I argued... Read more