Why do Protestants Undervalue Mary?

Last updated on: December 7, 2015 at 12:10 pm By Kyle Roberts

It’s no secret that Protestants gives much less attention to Mary, the mother of Jesus, than do Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Sure, she shows up at Christmas–but we’re not quite sure what to do with her theologically. The introduction to a book called Blessed Mary: Protestant Perspectives on Mary, describes the lack of attention to Mary in Protestant theology, but then suggests that Mary will be garnering more attention by Protestants in coming years. In that intro, Beverly Roberts Gaventa... Read more

Ernest Becker on the Logic of Killing Others

Last updated on: December 4, 2015 at 4:40 pm By Kyle Roberts

This semester I’ve been teaching a course called, Death, Evil, and Alienation here at United Seminary. It’s not as depressing as it sounds. Well, OK, sometimes it is. We’ve certainly seen a lot of tragedy and terror over the past several months. Throughout the semester, along with the challenging texts we’ve read, we’ve also had a steady supply of examples of these phenomena (death, evil, alienation) on the national and international scale. Obviously ISIS has been a big topic of... Read more

What Mary’s Magnificat Says About Poor, Single, Women

Last updated on: December 2, 2015 at 4:55 pm By Kyle Roberts

I’m guessing that when most pastors preach about Mary, the mother of Jesus, they don’t also talk about poor, single women and welfare reform. But that’s exactly what Traci West suggests we think about when we think about Mary. In Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women’s Lives Matter, West reads Mary’s Magnificat as having a great deal to say about the plight of poor, single women in our day. Mary’s song, which is familiar to most of us who... Read more

Advent, the Absence of God, and the Unburied Bones of Rwanda

Last updated on: November 30, 2015 at 12:40 pm By Kyle Roberts

The first task of theology is to address the very possibility of theologizing about silence and absence. In these words, Mario Aguilar sets forth the purpose of his haunting book, Theology, Liberation and Genocide: A Theology of the Periphery. The death and destruction that took place in 1994, during the three months of the Rwandan genocide, is staggering. Close to a million people died in that East African country–a country comparable in size to Haiti. More died during the longer context... Read more

Will Black Lives Matter in Minneapolis?

Last updated on: November 25, 2015 at 11:02 am By Kyle Roberts

In the months following Ferguson, several commentators predicted that Minneapolis would become the next city to experience a Ferguson-like racial crisis. And then Jamar Clark was killed by police last week. Questions abound as to the nature of Jamar’s death. Was he handcuffed? Killed execution style? The city has thus far refused to release the surveillance video. Hundreds of protesters have been camped out in the 4th precinct in Minneapolis, demanding justice for Jamar. The other night, white supremacists fired... Read more

Kierkegaard, the Neighbor, and the Refugee Crisis

Last updated on: November 23, 2015 at 3:47 pm By Kyle Roberts

I’m in Atlanta, enjoying the national American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature shin-dig meetings. One of the sessions I attended this morning was a group of papers on Carl Hughes’ new book, Kierkegaard and the Staging of Desire (the papers suggest Carl’s book to be an important contribution to Kierkegaard studies). The discussion about Kierkegaard’s understanding of love, in particular his reflection on Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39), seems profoundly relevant to... Read more

Mark Strauss’ “Bad, Bad Jesus”

Last updated on: November 23, 2015 at 7:03 am By Kyle Roberts

This post is a contribution to Patheos’ book club discussion on Mark Strauss’s Jesus Behaving Badly: The Puzzling Paradoxes of the Man from Galilee. You’ve heard about “bad, bad, Leroy Brown,” the “”baddest man in the whole damn town” who was also “meaner than a junkyard dog.” Jim Croce’s song was a #1 hit in 1973. But have you heard about “bad, bad Jesus?” Probably not, because the Jesus most of us know is a “good, good Jesus.” In Jesus... Read more

Is Deconversion the Result of Rationalism or Emotions (or Both)?

Last updated on: November 19, 2015 at 7:57 pm By Kyle Roberts

Steven Davis, a Christian theology and apologetics professor, recently deconverted from Christianity and theism to atheism. He is telling his story over on the blog “Almost Heresy.” You can read the first installment here. I summarized and briefly engaged Davis on what I thought to be something of a conflict or even contradiction in the way he described the “guiding principles” that ultimately led him to become an atheist–and subsequently to resign his professor position at a Christian college. On... Read more

Why We Can Never Cease Speaking of Bodies (M. Shawn Copeland)

Last updated on: November 18, 2015 at 11:14 am By Kyle Roberts

In Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being, M. Shawn Copeland has a hard-hitting, critical word relevant to our current situation: In theology, the body is a contested site–ambiguous and sacred, wounded and creative, malleable and resistant–disclosing and mediating “more”… Even in its battered economic state, the United States continues to cling to hegemonic power–exercising preeminence in nuclear power, asserting its will in global policies, influencing global culture and cultural products, advancing putatively humanitarian initiatives. Yet, even as its breathtaking self-designation... Read more

God Couldn’t Stop the Terrorist Attacks in Paris, Tom Oord Says

Last updated on: November 17, 2015 at 11:59 am By Kyle Roberts

It’s become fashionable in academic theology circles to refuse to speculate on God’s role in evil and suffering. This is especially so after a major tragedy or outburst of evil occurs. This is understandable for several reasons: First of all, how can we possibly know what God could or could not do, or would or would not do, with respect to events in the world? Maybe God isn’t the sort of being we can analyze in this way. Furthermore, given... Read more