I’ve been teaching a series on the Thessalonian letters at my church; last night we discussed the first half of Second Thessalonians. For much of the session, we were trying to figure out what to make of Paul’s very emotionally charged, viscerally apocalyptic language. I had titled the teaching series, “A Love Letter to the Church.” But where is the love, Paul? We find plenty of language about persecution and affliction (or tribulation), and promises of divine punishment of the... Read more
“Everything is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” I thought about that famous quote of Oscar Wilde’s when I came across an interesting theory of why many young British Muslims are leaving their developed world homes to join up with ISIS in the quest to establish a Caliphate. A Guardian article describes a recently aired television documentary, in which Abu Muntasir, the “Godfather” of the British Islamic militant movement, took responsibility for radicalisation of young British Muslims... Read more
I’ve never heard Matthew 15:21-28 preached the way it should be preached. This is the story of the Canaanite woman, from the region of Tyre and Sidon, who asks Jesus to heal her daughter from demon possession. Jesus answers her initial request rather rudely, stating that she–as a Gentile Canaanite–fell outside the focus of his mission (which was to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”). She was, as biblical scholar Elizabeth Wainwright points out, “doubly marginalized,” as both... Read more
By now, everyone has heard the story of Rachel Dolezal. I won’t repeat it in detail here, but the gist of it is that Dolezal, the head of Spokane’s chapter of the NAACP, has been “outed” as the biological daughter of two white parents. She had been publicly presenting herself as (at least partly) African-American; having concocted a story of having an African-Ameican father (a man she knew from a prior context) and an African-American son (who is actually her... Read more
Yesterday, I led a Bible study at my church on 1 Thessalonians 4. In this chapter we come to that most (in)famous “rapture” passage: But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 15 For this we declare to you by... Read more
Recently David Neff, former editor of Christianity Today, publicly announced his support of and agreement with Tony Campolo’s shift toward inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the church, and in particular Neff’s statement that the church should support loving, covenantal homosexual relationships just as they support heterosexual relationships. Then Mark Galli, current editor of Christianity Today, responded in an editorial to Neff, in which he stated–on behalf of CT–that “we are saddened” by Neff’s announcement. CT clearly wants to distance itself from Neff’s... Read more
This is the fourth post of a series I will be writing over the next few months in which I reflect on my theological journey through Evangelicalism and “out the other side.” A few years ago, it seems every evangelical blogger and theologian was writing about the “gospel.” They were proclaiming the “old, tried and true” gospel, recovering the gospel, renewing the gospel, restoring the gospel, or perhaps in some (fewer) cases reconfiguring the gospel. But in most of these... Read more
I was raised in a conservative Evangelical church. Southern Baptist style. We watched a lot of Tony Campolo videos in youth group. We heard him at a conference once, too. He was funny, energetic, powerful. He inspired a lot of young people to believe in God, to believe in grace, to believe that being a follower of Jesus meant living a life of love. Not everyone knows about Campolo through his early days as a youth speaker. Back then I... Read more
The following is an excerpt from Andrew Sung Park’s book, Triune Atonement. The section is titled, “Jesus’ Cross as the Symbol of Challenge”: Jesus’ death is the complete expression of his challenge to religious oppression, social injustice, economic exploitation, violence, and killing. Matthew 23 shows how visceral Jesus was toward the Pharisees’ and scribes’ religious legalism and economic exploitation. Jesus emphatically denounced the fact that they tithed mint, dill, and cumin but neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice... Read more
I’m working on a post on the atonement and the gospel (for the “Leaving Evangelicalism” series), which I will post sometime early next week. In the meantime, I thought I’d post a section from the prelude of a provocative and important book which critiques traditional, Western Christian atonement theory: Proverbs of Ashes, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker. from the preface: At the center of western Christianity is the story of the cross, which claims God the Father required the death... Read more
Unsystematic Theology
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