Please select one of the following: A. God is a velvet fist wrapped around a glove of iron firm, correcting, compelling. B. God is the inverse, all iron outside, insides receptive and comforting hammering our hard edges, then holding our hands. C. God is all velvet, endless embrace and acceptance Read the answer at: The Michael Toy | Multiple Choice. Read more
I’ve got two articles elsewhere today. They carry the same title, but they’re a bit different. One is an OpEd in the Minneapolis StarTribune: It may have been the jet lag, but a couple of articles in the Sept. 1 Star Tribune rubbed me the wrong way. After 30 hours of planes, layovers and passport control lines, I’d returned home from Sri Lanka to see headlines and photos of Christians happily worshipping outdoors (“Summer in the Cities: Heavens above“) and... Read more
I have a guest post up at Jesus Creed: As she continued to speak, I watched the face of our Tamil interpreter drop, then the face of our Singhala interpreter do the same. Then came the translation: “Simras’s mother lit herself on fire when she discovered her husband with another woman. She lived for fourteen days in the hospital, then she died. Simras does not know this story.” At this point our World Vision staffer looked stunned. Mundalama is a new... Read more
I originally wrote this post in 2005, but it somehow didn’t make the migration from Blogspot to Beliefnet to WordPress to Patheos. Like many people who have their first child approaching kindergarten age, I have been thinking about all of our options for next year: neighborhood public school, public French immersion, charter school, private school, homeschool. But it seems to me that if I am truly committed to living a missional life, then I must enroll my kids in the... Read more
1. Crucified God 2. Trinity and the Kingdom 3. Theology of Hope 4. God in Creation 5. The Coming of God Read more
Last month, I posted something out of frustration. I’d been reading lots of blogs written by progressive Christians. They were quick to criticize their more conservative brothers and sisters, but it seemed to me that they almost never said anything substantive about God. So I started to wonder, What do progressive Christians think about God? I mean, I know what I think. I just didn’t know what my compatriots think. So I asked. Say something about God, I said, Something... Read more
Last night, we celebrated the 8th birthday of my son, Aidan. He’s a great kid, and he was full of smiles and laughs as we shared pizza and cake and he got a remote control car and a DIY Root Beer kit as gifts. One week ago, yesterday, I celebrated the 8th birthday of Afra, my World Vision sponsor child. When I first met Afra, she was quiet, shy, and didn’t crack a smile. When our group showed up at... Read more
After years of trying to have it both way with LGBT voters — “We support you, but we can’t do it publicly because we’ll never win if we say it out loud” — it seems that the Democrats are going all in on the pro-LGBT vote. Last night was a coming out party of sorts for the DNC: If there’s one group in the Democratic coalition that can definitely say the past four years have improved its lot, it’s LGBT... Read more
This was in the paper when I was gone: Read more
Today, we start a new series here at Theoblogy. It’s called The Questions that Haunt Christianity, and it will be my attempt — as a theologian — to address the issues that keep people from faith. I’m not afraid of doubt. I, myself, am a doubter. But I consider a large part of my vocation as a Christian theologian to proffer intellectually honest answers to the big questions of faith. So this series is for everyone who doubts. It’s for... Read more
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