Posts
Leaving Westboro Baptist: Damsel, Arise
Category: General
Tags: Doubt, Grace, Growth, Megan Phelps-Roper, Westboro Baptist
Burstein! via Compfight A reader pointed us to this fascinating article about the defection of Megan Phelps-Roper from the notorious Westboro Baptist Church (Thanks Rocky). She’s the granddaughter of the founder and preacher Fred Phelps….
Sermon: Reframing the Sun
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Blessing, Colossians 3, Greg Boyd, Kingdom Living, Kingdom Responses, Life in Christ, Sermons, Theft, Woodland Hills Church
In our clip from this weeks sermon, Greg Boyd talks about how we respond to misfortunes and tragedies depends on how we frame them. In Colossians 3, Paul writes that Christ is all and is…
Swords into Plowshares
Category: General
Tags: Non-Violence, Peace, Peacemaking, Swords into Plowshares, War
Eneas De Troya via Compfight Kelley Nikondeha over at SheLoves wrote a penetrating essay on the work of peace and the prophet’s dreams of replacing the work of war into the work of feeding people. Peace…
The Evangelical Mind
Category: General
Tags: Doubt, Peter Enns, The Mind, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Theology, Wisdom
Peter via Compfight As a follow-up to Rachel Held Evans’ thoughts yesterday on the Scandal of the Evangelical Heart, we thought we would post this reflection by Peter Enns about the Deeper Scandal of the…
The Evangelical Heart
Category: General
Tags: Empathy, Evangelism, Rachel Held Evans, Theodicy, Theology
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…
Lighten Up: When he thinks no one will see it…
Category: General, Lighten Up
Tags: Greg Boyd, Humor, Lighten Up, ReKnew
I guess Greg’s editor doesn’t follow his instructions very well. :) Greg is a great theologian and apologist but he’s not the most brilliant when it comes to technology.
Violence: What Did Jesus Do?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Non-Violence, Suffering, The Way of the Cross, Upside-Down Kingdom
Thomas Quine via Compfight Here’s a spot-on reflection on what Jesus taught us about responding to violence. Whatever you think about the justification of violence in particular situations, as Christians we simply cannot escape the fact…
Henry’s Mom: Did God Author This?
Category: General
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Henry, Jess in Process, Jessica Kelley, Love, Open Theism, Problem of Evil, Warfare Worldview
Many of you were touched last month when we featured some reflections on little Henry’s death. Well, Henry’s mother Jess has started a blog to process through some of her thoughts and we wanted to…
Free Will: How free will presupposes a great deal of determinism
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism
Topics: Free Will and the Future, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
This particular video was recorded last week when the forecast called for a high of -4F. Greg makes light of the freezing conditions before he settles into the topic of how a mostly determined world…
Participating in God’s Love
Category: Q&A
Tags: Evangelism, Jesus, John 17, Love of God, Unity
Topics: Death and Salvation, Following Jesus, Trinity
Greg took a slight detour from his reflections on free will in this video in order to talk about Jesus’ prayer in John 17. He discusses the idea that God desires the kind of unity among…
Free Will: Are studies that demonstrate genetic determinism a threat to free will?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Greg shares his continuing thoughts on free will with a thought experiment (and a hand-drawn graph!) granting that we are largely determined by forces outside of our control. If we grant this presupposition, does that…
Matter Matters
Category: General
Tags: Flesh, Incarnation
Barbara Brown Taylor shares some thoughts on why our bodies matter to God. Thanks Rachel!
Is God Good?
Category: General
Tags: Free Will, God, Nature of God, Picture of God, Problem of Evil
Andrew Stawarz via Compfight This reflection by David D. Flowers seemed like a good addition to Greg’s recent blogs on free will. Here David talks about the problem of evil and how it is that…
Free Will: What is a free agent?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism, Philosophy
Topics: Free Will and the Future
What does it really mean to be a free agent? In this reflection, Greg offers some thoughts on free agents and how it can be that they are not exhaustively determined.
Free Will: What about “natural” evil? Was Hurricane Sandy a Free Agent?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Evil, Free Will, Natural Evil, Open Theism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict, The Problem of Evil
What about natural evil? How does free will help to make sense of this? Greg reflects on the origins of sickness, natural disaster, animal suffering and so on. Hope you’re enjoying the series so far….
Free Will: The origin of evil
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Evil, Free Will, Open Theism, Problem of Evil
Topics: Free Will and the Future, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
In this continuing series on free will, Greg discusses how evil can only be accounted for if we acknowledge free will. This is especially true if you believe that God is good.
Free Will: What does Quantum Theory suggest?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism, Quantum Physics
Topics: Free Will and the Future, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Bet you didn’t think we’d be going here. Greg discusses how quantum theory supports the idea of free will.
Free Will: An Aesthetic Model
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism, Philosophy, Satan and the Problem of Evil
Topics: Free Will and the Future, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Greg continues his thoughts on free will by offering an aesthetic model for free will. This one gets pretty philosophical, but it’s worth toughing it out.
Free Will: Is it a coherent concept?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism, Philosophy
Topics: Free Will and the Future, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Greg is going to be spending the next several blogs talking about the idea of free will. In this first reflection, he discusses whether it is coherent to speak of a decision that is not…
Hearing and Responding to God: Part 7 (Final)
Category: General
Tags: Action, Choice, Hearing God, Prayer
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
Here’s Greg’s final installment of this series (for real). Today he discusses our default settings when taking action. Do you generally do what is reasonable and seems right unless God says no, or do you…