Why There’s No Such Thing as a “Permanent Text” of the Bible

Last updated on: September 12, 2016 at 11:52 am By Kyle Roberts

It’s often said that “all translations are interpretations.” Scot McKnight draws our attention to the “New Stealth Translation of the ESV” (Crossway Pubilshing’s English Standard Version of the Bible), thereby indirectly raising the problem of politics and presuppositions in Bible translation. Yes, “all translations are interpretations.” And interpretations are human endeavors. Crossway recently announced that their 2016 edition of the ESV will be a “Permanent Text” from henceforth unto eternity (well, they don’t actually specify “unto eternity”). The “new ESV... Read more

Christian Universalism or Eternal Judgment? The Bible’s Pros and Cons

Last updated on: September 7, 2016 at 10:57 am By Kyle Roberts

One of the key turning points for me in my shift toward a more universalist view of salvation (the complete, universal reconciliation of all people to God), was a brief section in Moltmann’s The Coming of God. The section is titled: “The Dispute About the Bible: Pro and Contra Universalism.” He lists (and very briefly discusses) several Bible verses that appear to support universalism, and other verses which appear to affirm a “double judgment” (eternal, everlasting punishment on the one... Read more

A Brief, Liberal Definition of Public Theology (Via Schleiermacher)

Last updated on: September 5, 2016 at 8:10 pm By Kyle Roberts

My colleague shared a quote with me recently that is blog-post worthy. It encapsulates the liberal/progressive approach to public theology, which takes a common Christian scholarly sentiment that “all truth is God’s truth,” and runs that all the way down to mean that, “yes, seriously, all truth is God’s truth, and that conviction must shape the way we actually seek and determine what is true.” For Schleiermacher, the only possible Christian theology was a ‘public’ theology, one whose warrants could... Read more

Teaching About Death Anxiety in a Seminary Context: An Interview

Last updated on: September 5, 2016 at 10:47 am By Kyle Roberts

Last Fall I taught a course called Death, Evil, and Alienation, at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. The course revolved around the work of Ernest Becker, in particular The Denial of Death. I recently gave an interview about my experience in that course which has now been published on the Ernest Becker Foundation website. The course wasn’t just about death. It was about the “life instinct,” or the impulse toward preservation and the ways in which religion intersects... Read more

Why Democracy is Good Even Though it Still Sucks (Niebuhr’s “Christian Realism”)

Last updated on: September 4, 2016 at 11:29 am By Kyle Roberts

Ever heard of “Christian realism”? The notion is attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, whose writings about ethics, politics, and the relation between Christianity and society remain hugely influential. Robin Lovin, in An Introduction to Christian Ethics, has a good summary of Niebuhr’s Christian realism, showing why Niebuhr believed that democracy was deemed preferential to other systems of government: We need a form of government that will use force to restrain evil, but we also need to restrain the self-righteousness of those... Read more

Is a Cure for Alzheimer’s On its Way?

Last updated on: September 1, 2016 at 12:55 pm By Kyle Roberts

Huge news regarding the state of Alzheimer’s research was just announced on the Telegraph’s Science page. The announcement is a summary of a recent report in Nature magazine, which tells of a new drug that appears to halt mental decline in Alzheimer’s patients by eliminating the amyloid plaques in the brain which are thought to be the causes of dementia. This is said to be the “best news” in the past 25 years for dementia research. From the article: In... Read more

Why I’m a Christian Universalist in One, Simple Explanation.

Last updated on: August 31, 2016 at 9:53 am By Kyle Roberts

For many years of my life, “universalism” (universal salvation) seemed like a bad word. It was liberal heresy. A slap in the face of the gospel. Diminishing Jesus and the cross. I no longer see it that way. My journey from exclusivism, to a much more inclusive view of the gospel, and eventually into Christian universalism, took many steps. There was no single verse, no single theologian, no single event in my life that caused the shift. As with most... Read more

“It’s Never Been True that the Poor and Unemployed Do Nothing…”

Last updated on: August 30, 2016 at 11:10 am By Kyle Roberts

I love this quote by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, from Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Here’s the quote in fuller context: It has never been true, of course, that the poor and the unemployed do nothing. The strategies of survival themselves often require extraordinary resourcefulness and creativity. Today, however, to the extent that social production is increasingly defined by immaterial labor such as cooperation or the construction of social relationships and networks of communication, the... Read more

Kierkegaard: “I Believe that We Will All Be Saved”

Last updated on: August 23, 2016 at 9:40 am By Kyle Roberts

Following the death of Denmark’s bishop Jacob Mynster, in 1854, Kierkegaard wrote this brief reflection: What the old bishop once said to me is not true–namely, that I spoke as if the others were going to hell. No, if I can be said to speak at all of going to hell then I say something like this: If the others are going to hell, then I am going along with them. But I do not believe that; on the contrary,... Read more

Isn’t There Such a Thing As “Loving Coercion?” A Question Posed to Tom Oord

Last updated on: August 19, 2016 at 10:32 am By Kyle Roberts

Why Can’t Love Be Coercive? I wrote a brief reflection recently, on Tom Oord’s very interesting book, The Uncontrolling Love of God, which has been posted at uncontrollinglove.com. Most of the essays there agree with Oord’s theological perspective and are thinking along with Oord, with respect to how his theology of “essential divine kenosis” plays out in life. My essay, though, raises a question about one of the key premises of Oord’s theology (and of process theism more generally). Oord... Read more