Essay
Is Your Church Promoting Tribalism?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Kingdom, New Humanity, Racism, Tribalism
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues, The Church
It’s long been said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week. Sadly, many have taught us that homogeneity is the way the church grows the fastest. But should we put up…
The Religionless Church of the Future
Category: Essays
Tags: Church, Essay
Topics: The Church
“The time when men could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or simply pious, is over, and so is the time of…religion as such.… [W]hat is religionless Christianity?… What is the…
How Do You “See” God? God’s Self-Portrait, Part 1
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, God, Picture of God, ReKnew Manifesto, Seeing is Believing
Topics: Apologetics, Christology
When ReKnew first launched a year and a half ago, I planned on initially using the blog primarily to flesh out the theology and significance of the ReKnew Manifesto. As happens all-too-frequently in my ADHD…
How Reliable were the Early Church’s Oral Traditions?
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
How reliable were the early church’s oral traditions? In terms of assessing the reliability of the Gospels, this is an extremely important question. First century Jewish culture was what scholars today would call an “orally…
Satan and the Corruption of Nature: Seven Arguments
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Problem of Evil, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Creation Care, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict, The Problem of Evil
Man…trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law – Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrek’d against his creed” —Tennyson, In Memoriam Tennyson nailed it. We trust that God is…
The Case For Believer’s Baptism
Category: Essays
Tags: Discipleship, Essay, Kingdom Living
Topics: The Church
In this essay I briefly present my reasons for believing that baptism is intended only for people who are old enough to responsibly choose to become disciples of Jesus. I will first offer several biblical…
What are the different models of the Trinity in the Christian tradition?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, God, Trinity
Topics: Theological Method, Trinity
The Psychological and Social Models of the Trinity The Bible teaches that there is only one God. At the same time, it teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully God. For…
Is the Book of Acts Reliable?
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Essay, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
(Note: We apologize that certain German vowels didn’t translate onto this site). Introduction The book of Acts is of critical importance in the contemporary debate about the historical Jesus. The reason for this is straightforward….
The “Christus Victor” View of the Atonement
Category: Essays
Tags: Atonement, Church, Essay, Jesus, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
God accomplished many things by having his Son become incarnate and die on Calvary. Through Christ God revealed the definitive truth about himself (Rom 5:8, cf. Jn 14:7-10); reconciled all things, including humans, to himself…
The Point of the Book of Job
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Essay, Old Testament, Problem of Evil
Topics: The Problem of Evil
The point of the book of Job is to teach us that the mystery of evil is a mystery of a war-torn and unfathomably complex creation, not the mystery of God’s all-controlling will. Given how…
The Case for Women in Ministry
Category: Essays
Tags: Church, Essay, Women In Ministry
Topics: The Church
Kathy’s Struggle with Temptation Kathy was one of the brightest students I ever had when I taught Theology at Bethel University. She asked insightful questions and often contributed to lively class discussions. The time and…
What Is The Warfare Worldview?
Category: Essays
Tags: Blueprint Worldview, Essay, Evil, Free Will, Love, Providence, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Greg has written extensively on something he calls the Warfare Worldview. Many today believe that everything that takes place in the world is ultimately part of a divine blueprint and contributes in some way to…
Memorial Day
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Non-Violence, Pacifism, Self-Sacrificial Love, Soldiers, War
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence, Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
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…
Our Beautiful, Nightmarish World
Category: Essays
Tags: Beauty, Essay, Evil, Kingdom, Kingdom Living, Satan, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
The Bible consistently proclaims that the creation reflects the glory of God. To me, the truth of this proclamation is undeniable. When I was younger I several times went on three-week solo backpacking trips into…
The Kingdom, Just War Theory, and Ukraine
Category: Essays
Tags: Augustine, Current Events, Enemy Love, Essay, Just War, Non-Violence, War
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
History textbooks often read like surveys of how countries handled war with other nations. The stuff between the conflicts reads like precursors and aftermath to the history-making actions of war. Now we observe the rising…
Does God Have a Dark Side?
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Father, God, God is Love, Hell, Jesus, Wrath
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In the previous post, I argued that we ought to allow the incarnate and crucified Christ to redefine God for us rather than assume we know God ahead of time and then attempt to superimpose…
What Kind of God Did Jesus Reveal?
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Incarnation, Jesus, Love, Power
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
The ReKnew Manifesto exists to encourage believers and skeptics alike to re-think things they thought they already knew – hence our name, Re-Knew. I am currently working through the theology of the Manifesto in a series…
Was Jesus Really Human Like the Rest of Us?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, God, Jesus, Kenosis
Topics: Christology
Did Jesus really live as a human like you and I do? Or did he walk around with special divine powers that we don’t have? In the previous post, I introduced the question: How was…
Did Jesus Have Two Minds?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, God, Incarnation, Jesus, Kenosis, Omniscience, The Mind
Topics: Christology
As I laid out in the previous post, I believe Jesus is fully God and fully human. The question is: How is this possible? How do we talk about the way that Jesus was fully…
The Incarnation: Paradox or Contradiction?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, God, Incarnation, Jesus, Logic
Topics: Christology
We’re in the process of flushing out the theology of the ReKnew Manifesto, and we’ve come to the point where we should address the Incarnation. This is the classical Christian doctrine that Jesus was fully…