We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The Evangelical Heart
Rachel Held Evans posted recently about The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart. Citing a comment by John Piper (“It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.”) she notes that when we approach the Bible in the ways that we traditionally have, we risk becoming something less than human in our responses to suffering. And we risk worshipping a God that is heartless and cruel and capricious. She calls for us to follow Jesus with both our “head and heart” rather than setting aside empathy and emotion as we approach theology.
May we be a people who do not harden our hearts when encounter things that ought to break our heart.
From the blog post:
I’m not sure he and I will ever understand one another, but I’ve decided to quit apologizing for my questions. It’s not enough for me to maintain my intellectual integrity as a Christian; I also want to maintain my emotional integrity as a Christian. And I don’t need answers to all of my questions to do that. I need only the courage to be honest about my questions and doubts, and the patience to keep exploring and trusting in spite of them.
Category: General
Tags: Empathy, Evangelism, Rachel Held Evans, Theodicy, Theology
Related Reading

Grieving and Comfort
Henning Mühlinghaus via Compfight Ben Witherington posted this heartfelt reflection on the sudden death of his young daughter. Theology can sometimes be a relatively benign part of your life until something like this strikes without warning. That’s where things really begin to matter. This reminded us of Jessica Kelley’s reflections on the death of her son…

On Biblical Inerrancy
Matthew Kirkland via Compfight In this essay, Peter Enns explains his views on Biblical inerrancy and the complexities encountered as evangelicals attempt to define the term. From the essay: Speaking as a biblical scholar, inerrancy is a high-maintenance doctrine. It takes much energy to “hold on to” and produces much cognitive dissonance. I am hardly…

Did Jesus Say That God Causes Blindness?
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him (Jn 9:1-3, NIV) Commentators typically appeal to this passage…

Lighten Up: Ball and Chain Theology
Let’s not allow our theology to keep us from encountering one another in meaningful ways.

Featured Sermon Series: Scandalous Love
The Scandalous Love series is often considered one of Greg’s and Woodland Hill’s most foundational series. In fact, it was so important that it subsequently led to the Can’t Stop the Love series. Defining the true character of God is at the heart of what ReKnew is all about, so we wanted to host…