Podcast: How Does God Judge?

Finger-Pointing and the Impulse to Judge December 18, 2012

To no one’s surprise, yet to the sadness of many of us, several Christian spokespeople, including James Dobson, Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer, are blaming the shootings in Newtown, Conn, on abortion and gay marriage. This is sadly reminiscent of Jerry Falwell’s hurtful response to 9/11 when he divined that “the pagans,” “abortionists,” “feminists,” “gays,” “lesbians,”…

What About the Arizona Anti-Gay Bill? February 26, 2014

HumanSeeHumanDo via Compfight The recent anti-gay bill in Arizona which was passed last week by the state’s Legislature and now sits on the desk of the Governor, would allow companies to deny service to or discriminate against gay people based on the religious beliefs of the business owner. In response, Greg has tweeted: “The governor…

Cruciform Aikido Pt 3: The Judge Who Lets Them Have It July 26, 2012

We ended our last post noting that in the cross God ingeniously turned evil back on itself and triumphed over it. But what does all this teach us about the nature of divine judgment? Two things. First, as the one who bore our sin, Jesus experienced the judgment we deserved when the Father withdrew himself and…

How Judgment Makes Us Hypocrites May 22, 2018

The previous post addressed how the church is to be people of love not judgment, which means that the church is not called to be the moral guardian of the culture. What we often fail to see is the fact that when Christians assume the position of moral guardians, they earn the charge of hypocrisy.…

Cruciform Aikido Pt 2: God-Forsaken Judgment July 19, 2012

So if Jesus is the supreme revelation of what God is like, as we explained in our last post, what does that tell us about the nature of God’s judgment?

As Jesus was dying on the cross he cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?,” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46). This shocking cry reveals…

Sinful Accusers and Capital Punishment May 4, 2011

The Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman they had caught in the act of adultery (Jn 8:3-4; where was the guilty man?). They wanted to see how this increasingly popular, would-be Messiah, might respond. Their motive, of course, was to entrap Jesus (vs. 6). The law explicitly commanded that adulterers had be stoned to death…