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

Big Heart of Art - 1000 Visual Mashups

qthomasbower via Compfight

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.

Related Reading

We Need The Church

Vicki & Chuck Rogers via Compfight Last week we shared a thought-provoking article by Rachel Held Evans on the reasons millennials are leaving the church. This week we want to share a follow-up to that article that appeared on CNN’s Belief blog. Rachel lists the reasons why millennials actually need the church. Her thoughts actually apply…

Lord Willing? Part 3

In this final segment of Greg’s discussion with Jessica Kelley about her book Lord Willing?, Jessica talks about how to respond to someone who is grieving or in crisis. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here. We’re so grateful that Jessica took the time to share her story with us. We know…

How Should We Do Theology?

Delirious? via Compfight In yesterday’s post, we introduced a way of talking about theology with the use of concentric circles. At the center, is the revelational of Jesus—most keenly revealed on the cross. The next circle is dogma, which includes the central tenants of the historic-orthodox church. The next is what is called “doctrine.” And…

Why? The Question That Cannot Be Answered

Yesterday Greg sent out the following flurry of tweets: To provide some background to these tweets, the following illustration will prove helpful: They mystery of evil and an eight-second interval Let’s assume that there is an eight-second interval between two cars. Now let’s try to explain why there is this eight-second interval at this particular…

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled…”

“…was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” ~Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects Roger Olson reflected a few days ago on the curious absence of any discussion of Satan in modern theology. He even speculated: I suspect that one reason Greg Boyd, a brilliant theologian, is not taken as seriously as he should be by many…

Lighten Up: Wrong Finger