Darren King weighs in on the post, Are Conservatives the Real Gnostics?: Tony, I agree. And I’ve often thought about this in terms of how we handle parts of scripture – such as the epistles of Paul. Rather than seeing Paul as someone who, like us, was trying to make sense of new revelation blended with old understanding – in a real-time, presentflux kind of way, many conservative Christians – and even more specifically, many conservative, charismatic Christians – read... Read more

Eric Glover continues the discussion of the Trinity: First I just want to say that I’m not arguing for or against the traditional understanding of the trinity in this post, I just merely want to engage the applicability of the aforementioned rule, that if “X” cant exist in the mind then “X” cannot be believed, to biblical belief in any doctrine. Steve previously said: “To believe something, one must first think it; if something cannot exist in the mind, it... Read more

More than once, my Google Reader has shot me a link to a conservative blogger who’s accused me of gnosticism.  Here’s one from a few years ago that makes that claim, and there have been several more since. Gnosticism is a long-standing religious predilection, popular in Jesus’ day, and popular in our own as well.  While it can be its own religion, per se, it is more often manifested as a flavor within a particular religion.  Kabbalah, for instance, is... Read more

Wow.  There was a slew of great comments from which to choose this weekend.  The best comment string, methinks, is under The Orthodoxy of Down Syndrome.  But the top comment goes to Steve D., who commented under Is the Trinity Optional? I certainly HOPE that one doesn’t have to believe Nicaean Trinitarianism to be considered Christian. Otherwise, NO ONE could be considered Christian. The bottom-line is this: people may say they do, but no one actually believes the Trinity as... Read more

I failed to bring my series of posts on the pragmatics of hell to any kind of a decent conclusion.  I was knocked out of commission for a while by a bad case of stomach flu: It was as if I had taken the toxin of The Toxin Puzzle— except that I was sick for more than just one day — and nobody was offering me any million dollars.  I’ll try to wrap things up a bit better here. The... Read more