This post is my contribution to the Patheos Book Club on Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People. This book functions as something of a guide to community: to understanding the true nature of community, to cultivating a spirit and heart that is prepared to live in community, to learning how to desire the right kind of community, in the first place. Of the numerous short selections of readings in this book, I was drawn to one... Read more
Russell Moore just wrote an irresponsible article called, “The Real Meaning of Transgender Bathrooms.” Moore, a Southern Baptist theologian and head of that denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has garnered a lot of attention recently for his hard-hitting criticisms of Donald Trump. In turn, Trump called Moore a “nasty guy.” But as progressive-minded as Moore can be on some issues and as willing as he can be to take stands that may not be popular with certain factions of... Read more
Several years ago I was asked that question: “When will your theology stop changing?” It was in the context of my application for tenure at the evangelical seminary for which I was teaching. I couldn’t read his mind, but I suspected the answer he was looking for was something like: “My theological transformation stops at the edges marked out by the orthodox doctrine to which I have already committed (and I reiterate that commitment by continuing to remain a part... Read more
Have you ever witnessed a miracle? To even answer that question, we’d have to come to some common agreement as to what we mean by miracle. People routinely claim to have experienced or observed miracles. The Catholic Church even has a Vatican-appointed team of miracle-claim-researchers, called the “Miracle Commission” That’s a team I’d like to be on. Except I’m not Catholic. But I do believe in miracles. I don’t, however, accept the common understanding of a miracle as an divine... Read more
Dear Jesus: “There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married the widow and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.” (Mark 12:20-22) In this passage, some Sadducees (who didn’t believe in an afterlife/resurrection) try to corner Jesus with a complicated question about... Read more
“Axis of evil.” “That person is evil incarnate!” “There’s so much evil in our world…” We flippantly toss that word around, but I’d venture to say that many people don’t stop, for long anyway, to consider where evil comes from. What is the origin of evil? What’s the source? With all the beauty and goodness in the world, how did things go so terribly wrong? The Judeo-Christian tradition gives us, in the Genesis creation account, a story of the emergence... Read more
Picture this: After an hour-long, particularly excruciating routine of finally getting your baby to sleep, the doorbell rings. There are two Jehovah’s Witnesses at your door. You know they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses–and not Baptists or Mormons or roof/siding salesmen–because you recognize that Watchtower magazine they’ve got in their hands. They stand ready to invite themselves into your world and to tell you their interpretation of the Bible. But you’re in no mood for them to come into your world. You’ve just... Read more
I’m happy to report that we have put together an excellent session for this fall’s Søren Kierkegaard Society session at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting (in San Antonio, Nov. 19-22). Here are the rudimentary details. Date, time, and room # will be announced via the Society of Biblical Literature webpage when the conference schedule is published. Kierkegaard and the Question of the Historical Jesus This session explores Kierkegaard’s unique contributions to questions about the relation between the “Jesus of history”... Read more
Carl Sagan begins his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, with a discussion of that remarkable photo of planet earth taken by Voyager 1 in 1990: now known as the “Pale Blue Dot.” The photo was snapped from 3.7 billion miles away from our planet. NASA, Public Domain, Wiki Commons Sagan writes, From this distance the planets seem only points of light, smeared or unsmeared–even through the high-resolution telescope aboard Voyager. They are like... Read more
Jesus’s life started like so many other unfortunate ones across the globe. As a refugee. As a migrant. That’s the story Matthew tells. After news of his birth traveled to king Herod, the Roman client king issued a decree for all boys (under 2 yrs old) in Bethlehem to be killed. He would eliminate the symbolic threat to his power, that so-called “king of the Jews,” even if it required wholesale slaughter. Warned of this by an angel in a... Read more
Unsystematic Theology
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