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Lighten Up: And So It Began

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The Cross and the Witness of Violent Portraits of God

In my previous post I noted that the prevalent contemporary evangelical assumption that the only legitimate meaning of a passage of Scripture is the one the author intended is a rather recent, and very secular, innovation in Church history. It was birthed in the post-Enlightenment era (17th -18th centuries) when secular minded scholars began to…

Lighten Up: When Dogs Get to Heaven

The Cruciform Center Part 4: How Revelation Reveals a Cruciform God

I’ve been arguing that, while everything Jesus did and taught revealed God, the character of the God he reveals is most perfectly expressed by his loving sacrifice on the cross.  Our theology and our reading of Scripture should therefore not merely be “Christocentric”: it should be “crucicentric.” My claim, which I will attempt to demonstrate…

Did Jesus Instruct Us to Arm Ourselves?

Over the past few posts, I’ve been dealing with the passages that are frequently used to argue how Jesus condoned violence. One of these takes place just after the last supper and just before Jesus and his disciples were going to travel to the Mount of Olives to pray. To prepare his disciples, Jesus tells them;…

How is the Bible “God-Breathed”?

The historic-orthodox church has always confessed that all canonical writings are “God-breathed” (1 Tim 3:16). But what exactly does this mean? How could God guarantee that the writings that his “breathing” produces are precisely what he intended without thereby undermining the autonomy of the agents he “breathes” through? In other words, did God breathe the…

Simple Holidays

Lawrence OP via Compfight Here’s a reflection from Joshua Becker on Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing During the Holidays. From the article: Surely, each of us will define our holiday most important differently. Many will seek spiritual renewal. Some will celebrate family. Some will refocus on giving to others. Some will seek rest. Some will…