This World Is Not My Home (I’m Just A-passin’ Through) The title of this blog essay is the first line of an old evangelical gospel song. “This world is not my home; I’m just a-passin’ through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue….” I grew up singing that in church. Or maybe I heard it sung in church as a “special number.” (That’s what we called it when a person or ensemble sang a song to the congregation.)... Read more

“Why?” Chapter 20: “The Spirit Has Time” This is a commentary on Chapter 20 of Abram van de Beek’s book “Why? Suffering, Guilt and God.” Some of my readers are reading the book with me and we are taking OUR time to discuss it chapter by chapter. The previous chapter, 19, was “Jesus Christ—God’s Choice” and brought us to a sort of climax of both answers and frustration about vdB’s view of God. We now know, for example, that for... Read more

The Way We Were: Part 2 Reading readers’ comments (hardly any questions) here bemuses me. I wrote about the way we American evangelical Christians were in the 1950s and 1960s. By-and-large I find today’s American evangelical Christianity so different as to be almost a different religion. Things that were major to us such as Bible memorization (to choose just one) are no longer emphasized (except by fundamentalists) and things that were anathema to us such as going to Las Vegas... Read more

“Why?” Chapter 19: Jesus Christ—God’s Choice ”God is a rough God, grim, and in our eyes even cruel. God does not have the refinement of a middle class European or American. … God is not one you can figure out.” (“Why? On Suffering, Guilt, and God,” p. 277) I am sticking to one chapter this time, in this installment of my ongoing series of commentaries on this book by Abram van de Beek. Some of you are reading along with... Read more

The Way We Were I’m not saying here that “the way we were” was perfect or even all good. We, conservative evangelical Christians of the 1950s and 1960s, were, like everyone else, a mixture of good and bad. I’m talking here, now, about our way of life then. I’m afraid we American evangelicals have largely lost our way. Is our new way better than the way we were? I’m not sure; I actually doubt it. We have largely succumbed to... Read more

Patriotism vs. Nationalism Remembering the Difference between Patriotism and Nationalism I’ve become increasingly concerned that many American Christians (and perhaps especially evangelicals) confuse patriotism with nationalism to the extent that idolatry lurks close by. Patriotism is love for one’s country without blinders about its flaws and defects.  Patriotism seeks to actualize the highest and best ideals of one’s country which can sometimes look like disloyalty to nationalists.  Nationalists tend to confuse “country” with “government” and reject as disloyal all criticism... Read more

“Why?” Chapters 17 and 18: “Which Model Do We Choose?” And “God Is Changeable?” Does God change? If so, how and in what ways? In these two chapters our author (of “Why? Suffering, Guilt and God”), Abram van de Beek, is wrestling again with the problem of God’s omnipotence and goodness. How to reconcile them in light of the horrors of human history? In Chapter 17 “Which Model Do We Choose?” He lays the groundwork for what is yet to... Read more

Polyamory Is Not “Next,” It’s Here Now, In the Churches This blog post is a follow up to an earlier on where I asked the Texas Baptist minister who wrote a column for the Baptist News about “embracing the slippery slope.” I won’t repeat that blog post here. I will only say that I asked him where the slippery slope ends. Many churches have become “welcoming and affirming” with regard to gay marriage if not extra-marital gay sex. I need... Read more

“Why?” Part III, Chapter 16: “God Is Different” This is another installment of my continuing series about the book “Why? On Suffering, Guilt, and God” by Dutch theologian Abram van de Beek (here vdB). Several readers of this blog are reading the book and I am slowing down my commentaries in order to allow everyone to catch up. Today’s installment will be a commentary on Chapter 16 “God Is Different” in which vdB pursues further his ruminations, musings, about the... Read more

Where Does the Slippery Slope End? I recently read an opinion column in The Baptist News reacting to the Southern Baptist Convention’s rejection of women pastors. Famous American Southern Baptist mega-church pastor Rick Warren was appealing to the SBC to reinstate him and his church after they dropped their rule against women pastors and women preaching. (Warren’s Saddleback Church in California has multiple pastors and, apparently, at least one is a woman.) Warren’s appeal was rejected at the recent annual... Read more