Everyone Revises – The Question is Where to Stop

June 5, 2016 By Robert Hunt

In the previous blog I explored why the dispute between traditionalists and progressives regarding same-sex marriage is intractable. Now I want to focus on the specific problems in the ways in which each side justifies (primarily to itself) its belief with scripture. I’m going to start with the traditionalists. The traditionalists charge that the progressives are “revisionist.” It is a charge leveled within all religious groups toward those whose interpretations of scripture move away from previously accepted norms. In this... Read more

We Believe Before We Read

June 3, 2016 By Robert Hunt

“Ever since his own day Tyndall’s translation has been blamed for being tendentious. If we are thinking of his violent marginal glosses, this is fair enough; if of his peculiar renderings (congregation for ecclesia, senior or elder for presbyters, favor for charis and the like), a little explanation seems to be needed. The business of a translator is to write down what he thinks the original meant. And Tyndall sincerely believed that the mighty theocracy with its cardinals, abbeys, pardons,... Read more

Orthodoxy: You Cannot Return by that Door

April 29, 2016 By Robert Hunt

Steve Rankin, laying out an agenda for scholars concerned with orthodoxy says this: “First, we need to examine our metaphysics related to specific topics. Is the world a system closed to divine action and divine speaking or do we really think that God is actively involved in our world? If so, how do we recognize divine action? Is God available to us in this natural world, or should we be wholehearted deists? What divine actions do we believe are possible?”(https://umorthodoxy.org/2014/09/19/why-united-methodist-scholars-for-christian-orthodoxy/)... Read more

Do Christians have Anything to Learn about God?

April 26, 2016 By Robert Hunt

I’ve recently been engaged in reading about a movement within United Methodism to promote Christian Orthodoxy. Part of their statement of purpose is found on their website, written by Dr. Steve Rankin. It appears to me to suggest that United Methodist theology as such cannot learn anything new about God. “The mission of UMSCO, therefore, is to take the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian statement regarding Christology as our givens, our starting points. They provide our dogmatic... Read more

Intelligence under Attack II

April 19, 2016 By Robert Hunt

American Christians become so obsessed with the supposed attacks by secularists and humanists on their privileged position in American culture that they forget there are real attacks on Christianity taking place daily. Christians need to understand that apologetics are not just an evangelistic tool, they are a justice issue. I am not talking about attacks on Christians and the rights of Christian minorities. The egregious violations of human rights by religiously motivated terrorists target Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike. The the vast majority... Read more

Intelligence Under Attack Part I

April 19, 2016 By Robert Hunt

Inside the US the attack on intelligence by Ted Cruz’ new foreign policy advisors directly hurts Muslims and the Muslim community. Yet it has a far more detrimental effect in the long term on Christians and all Americans of faith. Because once you undermine the foundations of civil discourse about religion then every religion or religious viewpoint becomes open to lies, distortions, and illogic undertaken for political purposes. The Washington Post has reported that Ted Cruz has put into place... Read more

The Great Divorce

April 4, 2016 By Robert Hunt

No – not the excellent book by CS Lewis – I just used that as a hook. What may be the necessary divorce between evangelical (or as they now style themselves “orthodox”) United Methodists and progressive United Methodists. In the two previous blogs I tried to appreciatively highlight what these different movements within my denomination are seeking to accomplish. And they do both have something in common: they believe that humans can choose to live within a particular understanding of... Read more

Progressive Christianity: An Appreciation

April 4, 2016 By Robert Hunt

This is the second of two blogs on the Evangelical – Progressive Divide. For there to exist a reasonable conversation between evangelicals and progressives we must first cut past all of the political posturing that is part of the current progressive versus evangelical standoff in United Methodism and other Christian denominations. Right now factions are fighting for power within institutions. Such fights draw in the worst kind of people and draw out the worst in the rest of us. But... Read more

Evangelicalism: an Appreciation

April 4, 2016 By Robert Hunt

This is the first of three blogs on the Evangelical – Progressive Divide. For there to exist a reasonable conversation between evangelicals and progressives we must first cut past all of the political posturing that is part of the current progressive versus evangelical standoff in United Methodism and other Christian denominations. Right now factions are fighting for power within institutions. Such fights draw in the worst kind of people and draw out the worst in the rest of us. But... Read more

The End of Terror

March 29, 2016 By Robert Hunt

Brussels. Istambul. Lahore. And a thousand other places that we didn’t hear of or forgot. Start your list in 2001. Start it in 1991. Start it at the dawn of humanity. In E.B. White’s the Sword and the Stone, written in what many would see as a gentler age, a young Arthur’s dreams take him to the dawn of humanity that begins with one man slaying another. Identify the perpetrators of these inhumanities: Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the IRA, The Weathermen, The... Read more