This is the third in a series of posts reflecting on Richard Beck’s The Slavery of Death In the first half of the book, Beck paints a bit of a dire picture regarding our existential state as human beings. We are prone to be slaves to the fear of death. Aware of our mortality and of the inevitability of our demise, we erect structures and systems (and more broadly, what we call ‘culture’) to fend off death, both by attempting... Read more
This is the second post in a series of reflections on Beck’s excellent book, The Slavery of Death. Oops. Did I say “excellent” book? I meant to say “good,” “good enough,” or maybe even “very good.” You’ll see why in a minute. In Part 1, Beck sets up his argument by suggesting that perhaps we (Western Christians) have been wrong in assuming that sin gives rise to death; perhaps it’s the other way around. The pervasive, inevitable reality of death... Read more
I confess that Richard Beck is one of my favorite contemporary thinkers. He’s an experimental psychologist by profession, but is one of the very few brave souls who crosses fields (psych and theology) and does serious interdisciplinary reflection. This makes him one of the most important voices for contemporary theology today, in my opinion. I was looking forward to receiving his most recent book, The Slavery of Death, and have finally had a chance to take a look at it.... Read more
One of the great questions of modern theology is the problem of the hiddenness of God. Where was God when…(fill in the blank)? Why doesn’t God…(fill in the blank)? Why does God seem to…(fill in the blank)? Why doesn’t God answer my prayers for…(fill in the blank)? Some of us ask these questions often. Others choose to avoid the questions, or not think about them. Sometimes, I think, religious people need to ask these questions more often. This is why... Read more
I’m preaching this Sunday a sermon titled, The Secret of Election. I will be borrowing heavily from Lesslie Newbigin. No one, aside from N.T. Wright (and, in his own unique way, Karl Barth), spells out the “logic of election” (as he calls it) better than Newbigin. After demonstrating that one of the great misconceptions of the concept of election is that election is for privilege, he goes on to argue that election is for responsibility–and this responsibility involves the willingness... Read more
Growing up evangelical–and trained in evangelical theological contexts–I was often warned that universalism is a distortion of the gospel of Christ. If we do not definitively declare that salvation comes only through the conscious acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord in this life we are in danger of diminishing the message of the cross, the power of the gospel, and we are putting others (and perhaps even ourselves!) at risk of eternal separation from God. Furthermore, to flirt with universalism is to undercut... Read more
So rather let us openly mock God, as has been done before in the world: this is always preferable to the demeaning air of self-importance with which one would prove God’s existence. For to prove the existence of one who is present is the most shameless insult, since it is an attempt to make him ridiculous; but regrettably people haven’t the faintest idea of this and out of sheer seriousness see it as a pious undertaking…One proves [God’s] existence by... Read more
As I have been preparing to teach, for the first time, “History and Methods of Missional Theology” this upcoming semester at United Seminary, a question keeps popping up: Can there be…is there such thing as…might there ever be… a postcolonial, missional theology (and a postcolonial, missional church)? To many ears, “missional” sounds irredeemably conversionist, triumphalist, supremacist, exclusivist. Historically, the missional turn was motivated by a desire to move beyond those things: to be less parochial, conversionistic, and more ecumenical and... Read more
This post is part of a special Patheos conversation: “Modern Magi on the Meaning of Christmas,” featuring myself, Scot McKnight, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and Billy Kangas. As his latest contribution to our ongoing “Modern Magi” series, Billy Kangas posted a rich reflection today, an in-depth reading of Russian artist Anton Rublev’s nativity icon. I hadn’t seen the image before, though I am well familiar with Rublev’s famous icon of the Trinity–in the form of the three visitors who appeared before Abraham... Read more
This post is part of a special Patheos conversation: “Modern Magi on the Mysteries of Christmas,” featuring myself, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Scot McKnight, and Billy Kangas. Last week, Nadia Bolz-Weber posted a stirring reflection on the “slaughter of the innocents” (Matt. 2) passage on the anniversary the Sandy Hook massacre. She critiqued our cultural sentimentalizing of the birth narratives. We have whitewashed the rawness and grit of the story of the birth of Jesus and, in so doing, have undercut the... Read more
Unsystematic Theology
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