The creation-evolution debate is back in the news this week as Ken Ham held a public debate with Bill Nye. Ken Ham’s organization, Answers in Genesis, is representative of a certain segment of Christianity (primarily in the U.S. I believe). They believe and promote the idea that the Bible and specifically Genesis are inerrant, factual,
Category: Theology
Start with Theology or Life?
I love this recent post from Kathy Escobar. For me, she captures one of the things I’ve been trying to express for years: why I don’t like “abstract theology”. I obviously have an interest in theology, but I hate when preachers and other Christians just emphasize their systems and doctrines. It seems so detached from
The Gospel is Jesus
The Gospel is a topic I’ve addressed on a couple of occasions. But it is important enough to revisit. I have some new insights since I last wrote about it. Many of us are aware that “gospel” means good news. This is true, but there is more to it that just this. One specific and
On the “Depravity of Man(kind)”
As you know, it is written “In the beginning… God created them male and female… and it was very good.” God created us good. We have become broken and warped, and that is a tragedy. But we are fundamentally still valuable, there is still something good about our fundamental nature. And God loves us—God desires
Offensiveness of the Gospel
At times I’ll hear someone talk about how the gospel is offensive. In virtually every case, what the person has in mind is something along the lines of “non-Christians don’t like the ‘gospel’ because it confronts them with their sin.” Yet I want to suggest that this doesn’t match with what we find in the
Hell?
Another topic of discussion lately has been hell. For conservative evangelicals at least if not for most Protestants, the only view even ever presented is that there is a “heaven” and a “hell” and that after death every person ends up in one of those for all eternity. It doesn’t take even a very careful
Understanding the Challenge of Non-Jews Becoming Christian
As I recently wrote about, it the earliest major controversy in Christianity was whether or not one had to become culturally Jewish in order to becoming a part of the community of Christ followers. I tried to come up with a metaphor which might better explain the situation they were in. The best I could
Can Non-Jews Be Christians?
The first major controversy in Christianity was whether or not non-Jews could become Christians. We read about this in Acts 15 and Paul wrote his letter to the Galatian churches in response to this. I haven’t felt that I completely grasped this controversy in the past. There is a focus on following the Mosaic Law,
Bold Boundaries, Part 1: Seeing God
(Note: the primary message which inspired this post can be heard here.) Dan Brennan kicked off this year’s Sacred Friendship Gathering, themed “Bold Boundaries“. In the year since the first and most recent gathering, I had almost forgotten the intensity stemming from the depth of the presentations and the feeling of being surrounded by such
The Problem of Focusing Exclusively on Atonement
Evangelicals tend to focus on the atonement of Christ. This is certainly an important aspect of Christ’s work. However it is not the only thing Jesus did nor is it the only aspect of the cross. But evangelicals often seem to think that “Jesus died for your sins so you can go to heaven” is