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

henry

Some Questions a Year After Her Child’s Death

Jessica Kelley wrote a post for The Jesus Event that we wanted to share with you. You might remember that last year we were getting to know Jessica as she lost her four year old son Henry just before Christmas. In this post, she reflects on the theology of the people around her concerning her son’s death. She has some questions she wants to ask them that she didn’t ask at the time. You can read the whole post here.

We love you dear Jessica!

From her blog post:

They celebrated the coming of Immanuel, God with us.

 And I wondered… how many of those, who celebrated the God-child, believed that our child died according to God’s perfect plan?  Did they think the humble one, who once lay in a manger, inflicted our son with brain cancer?

 Those who had lifted us in prayer, did they believe this silent night… was a holy night? Was this despondent Christmas the one he’d planned for us?

Related Reading

Doesn’t the open view demean God’s sovereignty?

The Open view demeans God’s sovereignty only if one assumes that “sovereignty” means “meticulous control.” By why think this is the way God wants to rule the world? The biblical narrative presents a God who gives humans (and apparently angels) free will, who is flexible and creative in running the world, and who relies at…

Topics:

What Hinders Answers to Prayer

Prayer is powerful and effective, but it’s not magic. There is no automatic guarantee that what we’re praying for is going to come to pass, even when we’re praying with faith and in accordance with God’s will. Prayer is a form of co-laboring with God to change the world in a Kingdom direction. Yet, it’s…

What Does a Perfect God Look Like?

The “classical view of God” refers to the view of God that has dominated Christian theology since the earliest Church fathers. According to this theology, God is completely “immutable.” This means that God’s being and experience never changes in any respect. God is therefore pure actuality (actus purus), having no potentiality whatsoever, for potentiality is…

How Does God Hear All Our Prayers?

Q: At any given moment there are millions of people praying to God. How is it possible for God to pay attention to my little, silent prayer amidst all the chatter? The reason you or I can only effectively listen to one person at a time is because we only have a limited amount of…

Problems with the Simple Foreknowledge View

Some have proposed a model of divine foreknowledge which allows them to avoid the dilemma of affirming either that God creates people for the purpose of sending them to hell (Calvinism) or that he creates them without certain knowledge of their fate (open theism). In this alternative view God knows that certain individuals will be…

Topics:

What is the significance of 2 Samuel 24:12–16?

The Lord gives David three options of how Israel will be judged. “Three things I offer you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.” This verse reveals how the Lord gives people genuine alternatives and responds to their choices. If God foreknew what David would choose, however, the purpose of the…

Topics: