Most people, if they think about it, probably live their life around some kind of rhythm. As a kid I remember my dad working seven days a week at the paper mill with a week off in the spring to do some home maintenance and a week off in the summer so that we could go on vacation, most often to the beach in South Carolina. I imagine my dad was probably entitled to more time off but simply did... Read more
Preached at Redeemer Church on May 17, 2012. See a previous Ascension sermon here. John 16:7 – Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. We began the service by celebrating the glory of the Ascension, and that’s very, very good. But I want to take a step or... Read more
This past weekend (on May 13), the hispanic feminist liberation theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz died. Is “hispanic feminist liberation theologian” too much of a mouthful? She thought so, too. Each of those adjectives is accurate as a description of her work, but all strung together like that, they sounded like a tangle of disparate threads. So she coined a single term to name her single project: mujerista theology. Isasi-Diaz was certainly committed to the liberationist mode of doing theology. Her... Read more
Klaus Issler‘s new book Living into the Life of Jesus: The Formation of Christian Character (IVP, 2012) is a unique product. It looks like a spiritual formation book, and it is. From its green cover with a picture of a lone figure walking down a path into a gauzy landscape, you can tell it’s going to be in the genre of spiritual writing, with the soft touch and gentle approach that is customary for books in that field. A tender... Read more
My awesome little Baptist church follows the church calendar (Yes, that’s right.), and this Thursday is Ascension Day. After preaching at our midweek service last year, I became the church’s unofficial Ascension nut, and I’m getting ready to preach again. It’ll be our third sermon on the Ascension, each with a different approach, and between the three we’re well on our way to producing a pretty broad theological survey of the event. Two years ago, Dom Vincent preached on how the... Read more
There are three great mysteries in Christian theology: the Trinity, the incarnation, and the atonement. These three mysteries are all mysteries of unity: The mystery of the Trinity is how the three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are the one, only God. The mystery of the incarnation is how the divine nature is united to human nature in the person of our one Lord, Jesus Christ. And the mystery of the atonement is the mystery of how the holiness of... Read more
Dr. Geier: “It’s interesting that Satan’s uninteresting.”
The Metathon ended Sunday night, complete with its traditional climactic cake. Lots of us stayed up an hour or two after eating to follow loose conversational threads from the last few days (“So what did you mean that knowledge is an image?”) or to play with our newly-minted inside jokes. It’s amazing the sort of work and play that’s possible after you’ve shared so many words and so much focus with a small group of loving people. The group covered a... Read more
It’s a commonplace in contemporary theology to say that the doctrine of the Trinity was marginalized in the modern period, until it was recovered by Barth and Rahner. The doctrine was kept around, so the story goes, but it didn’t matter to theologians, and didn’t do any real work that made a difference. That’s the story as I learned it, and it seemed to make a lot of sense. It seemed to explain why there’s been a torrent of publications... Read more
I’ll admit it. I’m skeptical about attempts to prove the existence of God or, indeed, any of the major tenets of the Christian faith. Reinhold Niebuhr once quipped that ‘the doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.’ I’m not sure I’d even go that far. There’s a lot of evidence out there that demands a verdict, but I doubt whether the verdict delivered can amount to more than an affirmation of the strong... Read more
As one chapter in the history of the Torrey Honors Institute closes and another opens, some of the minds responsible for its birth reflect on the development of the program. Join Dr. John Mark Reynolds, Dr. Paul Spears, and Dr. Fred Sanders as they discuss the origins and future of the Torrey Honors Institute. Click here to listen! Read more
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