The Re-Paganing of America and God’s Eternal Word

August 13, 2016 By Robert Hunt

We need a little less extra ecclesiam nulla salus and a little more logospermatikos. (Catholics are welcome to pile on about a distinction without a difference.) Just the other day I had a long and heartening conversation with a group of well educated post-Christians. All educated. All married with children. All intensively involved in political and social movements for positive change in society. Mostly pleased that their children were good kids heading on to become good adults like their parents.... Read more

The Kentucky Ark – Is it Really Christian?

July 13, 2016 By Robert Hunt

In Northwestern Kentucky a new religion has appeared – with its temple a theme park called the “Ark-Encounter.” It claims to be Christian but is essentially a for-profit sect designed to scam money out of local tax payers and whatever suckers can be drawn into the “life sized” replica of Noah’s ark. (For more on the scam see http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/11/11/what-ken-ham-isnt-telling-you-about-ark-encounter-funding/) (If you want to know what the Bible actually teaches read Genesis 6 and onward.) Now the theme park owners don’t claim... Read more

The Bright Heart of Dallas

July 9, 2016 By Robert Hunt

In the last 48 hours the city of Dallas has reeled with grief. Grief felt for victims of police violence against African Americans. And grief felt for the 5 police officers assassinated by a gunman, and 7 others wounded while they were protecting the right of the people to peaceable assembly. The sun had barely risen on our stricken city when a large gathering of religious leaders from all of the different communities in Dallas came at the invitation of... Read more

It Isn’t About Us. Really.

July 6, 2016 By Robert Hunt

The New York Times recently ran yet another “why aren’t Westerns outraged” articles after the attacks in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and Baghdad. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/world/europe/muslims-baghdad-dhaka-istanbul-terror.html?_r=0 In the article Anne Barnard suggests that this failure of outrage serves the Islamists by making Sunni Muslims feel ever more isolated from the West. “One of the primary goals of the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups is to drive a wedge between Sunni Muslims and the wider world, to fuel alienation as a recruiting tool.... Read more

You are Asking the Wrong Questions!?

July 4, 2016 By Robert Hunt

More than once in the last week I’ve been told that when we talk about human rights, such as a right to life or a right to choose, that we “aren’t asking the right questions” because these questions arise from a modern rather than Biblical framework for understanding humanity. I suspect that what is really happening is the those whose power was derived from a privileged place in an earlier culture and historical situation are attemping to disempower those who... Read more

Istanbul, Could It Happen Anywhere? No.

July 1, 2016 By Robert Hunt

A day after the bombings in the airport in Istanbul the BBC Newsclaster breathless bloviated, “It could have happened anywhere, Paris, London, Vienna, Stockholm.” What utter rubbish. In the Graben, at the center of the city in Vienna, is the Plague Monument. Basically a rather unattractive column of baroque excess erected as a prayer of thanks to God for the end of the plague. Austria, indeed Europe, has many such monuments, chapels, and churches. (My favorite is the Cholera Chapel... Read more

Belief Cannot Make Us One

June 29, 2016 By Robert Hunt

There is no universal human expression of timeless truth. Humans can neither think nor articulate their beliefs without language. And language is relational, temporal, and culture bound. Yet we also find, across all languages and cultures, that human minds seek to know Transcendence. Language is continually pushed to its limits in order to think the unknowable, speak what it finds, and hear what cannot be spoken. What we have in common as humans is a mind shaped by God for... Read more

The End of Babel

June 24, 2016 By Robert Hunt

I’m thinking about the cities in the Bible. The seven cities in Revelation are often a touchstone for Christian reflection on the church. Well, usually someone else’s church. And I know that we would like to imagine ourselves as the New Jerusalem. But that just seems unlikely from what I see in the UMC. Who would want to live in war-wasted post-General Conference denomination we have become. What about another city? There is a story in the Bible worth reading.... Read more

Orlando and Religious Law – We have a Problem

June 14, 2016 By Robert Hunt

John 18:29: So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” 31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.” The religious leaders replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” Pilate might be remembered better in history if he had stuck to his principles on this. Jesus... Read more

Love Minus Zero / No Limit?

June 9, 2016 By Robert Hunt

In the last blog I offered that God reveals God’s self in scripture as the creator of order, indeed of overlapping orders that define the natural world, the social world of humans, and the church. I also stated that the Christian understanding of those orders has been continually revised up until today under the twin influences of natural revelation and the ideals of God’s Reign as described in scripture. American Christian progressives, as I read them, are most anxious to... Read more