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Are we called to suffering?

Are we called to suffering?

What does it mean when we say we’re called to suffering? Does it mean that we should allow ourselves to be victimized or that God approves when we are abused? Here are Greg’s thoughts on this topic.

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When Free Will Meets Unfathomable Evil

In the face of tragedy Christians unfortunately tend to recite clichés that attempt to reassure people that, however terrible things seem, everything is unfolding according to God’s mysterious plan. We hear that “God has his reasons”; “God’s ways are not our ways”;  “God is still on his throne”; “God doesn’t make mistakes,” and things of…

Friday Lights: A Theologian Goes to Hollywood

Each Friday we post content sent to us by our readers that is inspiring, funny, lighthearted or just generally fun. If you’d like more information on submitting content for this feature you can get more information here. However, today’s Friday Light comes from Greg. (The photo above alone seemed like it was worth it.) Greg played a small role…

Q&A: Already-Not-Yet

Question: My question is regarding our “entanglement” with Christ that you spoke about a few weeks ago. In the sermon you noted how we are joined with Christ like those two particles that can be separated by light years of distance and yet both will react equally to a force acting on the other one. So here is my question: If…

Responding in Love

The world is full of conflict where evil begets more evil. Violence produces more violence. Arguments produce more arguments. It’s a tit-for-tat world. What is God’s strategy for stopping this conflict? How does God respond to evil, and how does God call us to respond? This strategy might even come in handy during heated conversations…

The Wrong “Bulls-Eye”: Reflections on the “Christian Left”

As it has since the fourth century, the Church today for the most part operates with a Constantinian (“power-over”) paradigm. Because of this, most socially concerned Christians are inclined to define the Church’s mission as adjudicating between and tweaking political options “in Jesus’ name.” We accept Caesar’s definition of “power” as the ability to get…

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day, we thought we would repost Greg’s thoughts from 2007. In this post, Greg expresses his conflicted feelings over this holiday and gives a brief defense of Christian pacifism.  *** Hope you all had a happy Memorial Day. (Isn’t that something of a misnomer — a happy time remembering people killed in war?) Memorial Day…