Reading “The Divine Conspiracy” by Dallas Willard was quite an undertaking. It is a fairly long book—400 pages—and the content is not light. That’s not to say it is difficult to read—it is written accessibly enough—but it does take some effort to understand what Willard is trying to communicate. While I thought it started off
Book Review: The Explicit Gospel, Part 2
Part 1 The eighth chapter (“Consummation”) contains one of the only new and insightful pieces of information I found in the book. The chapter basically takes a quick look at eschatology (the end of the world). Chandler shares that when the bible speaks of “a new heaven and new earth”, the word for new used
Book Review: The Explicit Gospel, Part 1
I’ve had a challenging time deciding what I think of Matt Chandler’s book, “The Explicit Gospel”. To be honest, I agreed with most of what he said, yet much of the book sat uneasily with me. I’m going to explore the reasons I believe this is the case. Basically, “The Explicit Gospel” is a summary
Reasons for Faith
Last week I posted a list of some things which challenge my faith. To be fair and balanced, I also want to take a look at reasons why I do believe. To be honest, probably the top reason I’m a Christian is because that’s what I’ve grown up with and haven’t found reason to ditch
Things Which Challenge My Faith
I normally speak here as though I have Christianity all figured out. In reality, I have a lot of good theories which I believe fit with the bible and what I’ve heard from certain other followers of Christ. But I can’t vouch for everything from personal experience. I’ve heard debates on whether or not doubt
Church of America
This time of year many churches in the U.S. celebrate the Forth of July. I expect Americans to celebrate, but I’m very uncomfortable with churches doing so. I’m not wanting to condemn anyone specifically; I am merely sharing what the mix of Christianity and American patriotism communicates to me. The way churches celebrate the U.S.
Friendship Between Men and Women: Safety
One important topic to address in the conversation of friendship between men and women is that of safety, especially of women. “Worldwide, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused during her lifetime” (“The Resignation of Eve”, Jim Henderson, pp. 59-60). As men, I believe we need
Interpretation of the Bible
Most Protestants, especially evangelicals, talk about being biblical. The problem is, the bible is contained in language, and language requires interpretation into meaning. While any given language has a generally agreed upon set of meanings for various words, phrases, and sentence structures, there is some play in the interpretation from the language into the overall
Is Your Basis for Truth the Bible or Jesus? Is the Bible Your God?
It seems to me that some Christians have fallen into the trap of idolizing the bible, making it the central and sole substance, as if that the bible was all there is to Christianity. To these people, studying and believing the bible is everything. What I’m attempting to communicate is a fairly subtle difference; while
Book Review: The Resignation of Eve, Part 5 – Misinterpretations
This is a continuation of my review of the book “The Resignation of Eve” by Jim Henderson. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 As I’ve been thinking over this topic, I imagined the push-back I might receive from some people. This brought me to a revelation: When someone argues against complementarianism and says