Every religion has its creation story–and multiple variations within each religion. Where did we come from? This is one of the big life questions. The role of creation stories is explored with depth in Morgan Freeman’s (upcoming, 4/24), The Story of God. Freeman raises important questions: Did civilization give rise to God? Is God a product of civilization? Or does God–as active agent–prompt the emergence of civilization in the first place, by giving enough of a sense of the divine... Read more
If your car broke down, and you had to pay $400.00 to get it fixed, could you? 47% of all Americans don’t have enough savings to cover that emergency. They’d have to use a credit card or payday loan or sell something they own. So if that’s you, count yourself as among the “financially fragile,” nearly half of the American population. That’s the sobering reality discussed in a recent Atlantic article titled, “The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans.” People who... Read more
What to do about the seminaries? CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay Theological education faces a steep, uphill battle. Seminaries are scrambling to grab onto whatever share they can of the steadily dwindling traditional market. And some are creatively looking for new markets. All of them are changing, to some degree or another. Some mixture of hope and anxiety is running through the entire system. Some are buckling down to ride out the change by reaffirming, or conserving, their traditional theologies.... Read more
A CNN op-ed today explores the question of Bernie Sanders’ religion and gives some interesting background on his Jewish upbringing. The piece quotes Sanders’ response to Jimmy Kimmel on the question of religion: Well, you know, I am who I am,” Sanders said, evoking God’s evasive answer to Moses through the burning bush. “And what I believe in, what my spirituality is about, is that we’re all in this together — that I think it’s not a good thing to... Read more
The third installment of Morgan Freeman’s “The Story of God” (upcoming, 4/17) departs a bit from the first two, which focused on eternal life and the apocalypse. The drama of apocalyptic terror switches into a peaceful meditation on God. How and when did belief in a single God (monotheism) come about? How do we best understand the distinctions between how folks of major world religions believe in God? These questions are impossible to adequately address in a single episode. The... Read more
People are fascinated by the end of the world. Global annihilation. Widespread famine. Fire and floods. “The Battle of Armageddon.” Angels and demons battling it out. Good versus evil. The Antichrist. You name it. People are fascinated with these doomsday scenarios. But why? That’s one of the questions Morgan Freeman asks in the second episode of The Story of God. The episode is devoted to the apocalypse. Maybe we’re intrigued for the same reason we look at car crashes. We’re... Read more
Sam Chan (Ph.D., M.D.) is a theologian, preacher, and medical doctor who writes and gives talks from the Bible about life, faith and work. Sam is a public speaker for City Bible Forum and works as a doctor at the Hospital for Specialist Surgery, Bella Vista in Sydney. The following guest post is based on a talk Sam recently gave for City Bible Forum. A driving question is “Will I be remembered?” We want to live on in people’s memories.... Read more
Most of us don’t want this life to be all there is. We don’t want it all to end with a funeral. Most of us want something “more.” But what’s the “more” that we want? Is it enough to know that we “live on” through the memories of our friends, loved ones, and other people we’ve influenced or touched in some way? Is it enough to be remembered? Or, do we need/want to believe that we’ll have some kind of... Read more
The doctrine of the “perpetual virginity of Mary” is well-established within both official Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. The idea is that Mary, mother of Jesus, was a virgin before the birth of Jesus, during the birth of Jesus, and after the birth of Jesus (forever and ever, amen). The assumption was that her hymen was never ruptured–neither by the travail of birth nor by sex. It’s crazy sometimes, what theologians go on about. The idea of the perpetual virginity... Read more
When will the kingdom finally come? When will creation be healed? When will evil be overcome? It’s been nearly 2000 years since the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Christians have been waiting a long time for the promises of restoration, redemption, and reconciliation to come true. Why the long “delay of the parousia” (return)? A few weeks ago, I posted a review of Thomas J. Oord’s excellent book, The Uncontrolling Love of God. After summarizing his argument and describing... Read more
Unsystematic Theology
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