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. Without fail, every Christmas morning Dad read us the “Christmas story” from the gospel of Luke. This doubled as an exercise in patience (and sanctification), since the cinnamon rolls and presents had to wait till after the good book was read. In that story of Jesus’ birth, Luke tells us that the birth of Jesus... Read more
I’ve been involved in Advent discussions at my church on the ‘theology of heaven.’ It’s been fun to think about heaven in the context of Advent. We typically reflect on the incarnation when we do Advent stuff, but it’s also very much a time to reflect on the brevity of life, the meaning of our history, and what comes ‘after’ this life. Our culture suffers from a deprived (if not depraved) understanding of ‘heaven,’ which has also fed into the... Read more
I have recently picked up Sarah Coakley’s important new work, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay on the Trinity, which is the first in her unfolding four-volume systematic theology. I may get around to a full-length review, after I’ve completed the book (that would probably be wise–to complete it first). But for now I’ll post an interesting segment where she states her thesis regarding the “relation of postmodern gender theory to liberal Enlightenment thought and feminist theology.” Postmodern gender... Read more
Lord Jesus Christ, there is so much to draw us back: empty achievements, meaningless pleasures, unworthy concerns. There is so much to scare us back: a pride that is too cowardly to let itself be helped, a cowardly timidity that shirks to its own ruin, an anxiety of sin that shuns the purity of holiness as illness shuns the remedy. But you are still the strongest–so draw us, and even more strongly, to yourself. We call you our Savior and... Read more
Several months ago, I posted (on my former blog) a head’s up about a forthcoming book on Barth and Evangelical Theology, co-edited by Christian Collins Wynn and John Drury. That forthcoming book has now come forth. I haven’t had a chance to see it yet, since I had to miss AAR this year, where I’m told it appeared in its shining glory. But it looks to be a compelling volume. As it always has been, evangelical theology is very much... Read more
Unsystematic Theology
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