Sep 23
God’s self-giving goodness and his determined commitment to rescue and redeem his creation were demonstrated two thousand years ago on a Roman cross. This is the guiding conviction that animates Mark Baker and Joel Green’s exploration of the meaning and scope of the atonement in the second edition of Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts. Read more
Do we love God for who he is or for what he can do for us? This is one of the central themes that runs throughout Skye Jethani’s recent book, With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God. The book examines some of the ways in which we tend to relate to God, diagnosing some problematic and unhelpful tendencies, and arguing for a mature commitment to live and walk with God for his own sake, rather than for the advantages we can secure or as a strategy for coping with the fear and unpredictability of life. Read more
We usually give our kids at least half an hour to read before bed each night, and lately my 10 year-old son has taken to reading the Bible. Not a kids’ Bible or an illustrated Bible, or anything like that, mind you. We’re talking the real thing here—a New American Standard Version, Gideons Bible that his sister inherited at the VBS put on by some local churches a few weeks ago. They were giving out free Bibles to the kids who didn’t have one—like, say, pastors’ kids. Sheesh. Read more
Every night, bedtime prayers with my kids conclude with some version of the same phrase: “And help ____ to have a good sleep with no bad dreams. Amen.” This is the non-negotiable conclusion to all bedtime prayers in our house. Should I omit or modify this peroration in any way, this transgression will be swiftly brought to my attention, and I will be enthusiastically exhorted to rectify the situation. The day is not complete, it seems, without entrusting our sleep and the subconscious cogitations it may or may not contain, to the care of God. Read more
While I am increasingly growing bored, annoyed, alarmed, and bemused by the furor around Rob Bell’s new book and the universalism it may or may not betray, I did want to pass along an excellent post that a friend sent me this morning. I think that Jason Boyett is identifying a very important point about the nature of Scripture and how it relates to the theological positions we hold, whatever they might be: Read more
Every Wednesday morning I stumble out of bed much earlier than usual to meet a group of guys for coffee, conversation, Scripture, and prayer in the basement of a local church. We’re ostensibly making our way through the book of 1 Corinthians but more often than not we wander off into discussions about about work, marriage, parenting, and the nature of faith. There are a number of streams of Christianity loosely represented in our morning get-togethers—Christian Reformed, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, United, and even Mennonite! It’s a great bunch of guys, and I look forward to Wednesday mornings. Read more
As far as ambitiously titled books go, Chris Seay’s The Gospel According to Jesus would surely rank near the top of many lists. I wasn’t even sure who Seay was when I cracked open the book (turns out he is the pastor of a church called Ecclesia in Houston, TX), but the title grabbed my attention. I was curious to hear more about the “Faith that Restores All Things,” suggested by the subtitle. As a Mennonite, I suppose I am drawn to anything that smacks of a Jesus-centred approach to faith. Consequently, despite my unfamiliarity with the author, I had high hopes for this book. Read more
Perhaps it’s some kind of strange back-to-school induced nostalgia, but today I’m thinking about parenthood and family and just how it is that my little twins have somehow become these big grade four creatures that no longer need (or want, sometimes) their hands held, or to be walked to school, or shepherded to their various activities, or any of the other things that have just been a part of life for what seems like forever. They’re growing up, I suppose, as kids are prone to do. It’s an interesting journey, this business of raising children. Read more
Sep 15
Richard Dawkins famously opens chapter two of The God Delusion with the following oft-quoted, adjectivally promiscuous salvo:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Read more
I just finished reading Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre’s delightful plea for us to renew our commitment to steward the gift of language as the treasure it is. She is not the first to lament the decline of those who truly understand and appreciate the importance of words (a problem compounded in our text-crazy, Facebooked, Twittered world), but her book communicates these points with the grace and beauty you would expect from someone attempting to lure readers back into the simple truth of how words can move us. Read more
I am in the middle of preparing a sermon on Psalm 125 for this Sunday. Psalm 125 is part of the Psalms of Ascent, songs that the Israelites would sing on their yearly pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the holy festivals. It is a psalm that celebrates the God who “surrounds” his people, the God in whom security and goodness are found. Just as the mountains wrap around the city of Jerusalem, giving it security and strength, so the Lord is all around his people. It is a Psalm of confidence, security, and hope. Read more
This past weekend we made the trip down the island to visit Sidney Booktown. We had heard from a number of people over the last two years that this was a necessary outing for newcomers to Vancouver Island, so we finally decided to check it out. Despite the cloudy, cool conditions, it was a great way to spend the afternoon. Sidney is a delightful little seaside town with a whole bunch of really cool bookstores and coffee shops. If it wasn’t for a couple of eight year-olds whose tolerance for leisurely bookstore browsing has limits, I could have spent all day there! Read more
On to the second of Stuart Murray’s seven core convictions of Anabaptists (from The Naked Anabaptist): Read more
I’m always curious to observe how people view the Bible, both inside and outside of the church. There are often very interesting assumptions at work about what it means to “take the Bible seriously” or about how Christians view (or ought to view) the Bible. Everyone thinks they have a good understanding of what it means to “believe in the Bible” (or, more often to disbelieve in the Bible) whether this understanding comes from inside or outside of the Christian fold. Read more
Nov 6
I realize two cartoons in one week is a bit unusual around here, but this one was just too funny not to share. I promise to return to more substantial themes shortly 🙂
Scot McKnight has been blogging about the controversy generated by the TNIV announcement (see here and here for Scot’s thoughts; see also here for discussion on this blog) this week as well and offers the following humorous synopsis of the “tribalism” that accompanies the varied and sundry English translations. I suspect these resonate a bit more deeply south of the border, but they’re recognizable in the Great White North as well (and pretty funny, in my opinion): Read more
This morning’s tour through the blogosphere led to the discovery that Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society) is giving up on the 2002 revision of the New International Version of the Bible (the TNIV) because of the “mistakes” of this translation. As someone who actually likes the TNIV and uses it somewhat regularly, I was surprised and a little disappointed to learn about this. I realize that the TNIV is not a perfect translation and that, like every translation, there are biases and interpretations that come through, but it’s one that I’ve come to appreciate over the years—not least because of its commitment to render the original text in more gender inclusive language. It’s a translation that I don’t hesitate to recommend to others, whether they are long-time Christians or they’ve never cracked open a Bible in their lives and are just curious about what they might find. Consequently, I was interested to discover which “mistakes” the publishers were talking about. Read more
A few days ago, Arts & Letters Daily linked to a book review called “Does God Hate Women” from The New Statesman. On one level, the book being reviewed seems fairly unremarkable. It predictably and, in some cases justifiably, indicts religions for their historical subjugation of women and “exposes” God and his followers as being anti-women. Those religious folks who have the audacity to claim that religion might have played any kind of emancipatory historical role for women are mocked and described as engaging in “theological contortions” that are untrue to the real nature of their religions (which, presumably, their atheist critics alone understand). Read more
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Rumblings 