Posts from the ‘Faith’ Category

Feb 12

Coming to Peace with History

I recently had an interesting conversation about the relationship between history and truth with a group of UBC students with whom I’m going through Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. We arrived yesterday at what is, in my opinion, one of the most important chapters in the book—”The Logic of Election.” In this chapter, Newbigin challenges our assumptions about what election is for, arguing that God never chose a specific group of people—whether the nation of Israel or the church—to be the objects of eternal salvation but rather to be his instruments of extending his redemption to others. According to Newbigin, we do not encounter God as isolated individuals; he has always used other people—both now and across time—to communicate his purposes to us. Read more

Aug 21

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The Persistence of Religion

Columbia professor Mark Lilla wrote a very interesting article in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine which deals with the relationship between religious belief and politics (adapted from his forthcoming book, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West). It’s an interesting article—one well worth taking the time to read and think about. Among the many interesting issues raised by this article, I was drawn to one in particular—the persistence of religious belief, and what might account for it. Read more

May 4

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But Why, Daddy?

The other day one of the moms from our kids’ kindergarten class asked me for some “pastoral” advice about how to deal with what was for her son, the traumatic discovery that everybody dies (this discovery came via the film Charlotte’s Web). I fumbled and mumbled my way through some explanation of how we try to teach our kids that God is ultimately going to reclaim and redeem the world of our present experience, validating all that is good and true etc. My response may or may not have been adequate, but I was reminded of some of the questions that arose when our kids recently encountered death. One of their preschool friends was tragically killed in a traffic accident last year, and I remember being surprised (and heartened) by their bewilderment—even outrage—that such a thing as death should occur. Read more