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Posts from the ‘Theology’ Category

Sep 20

6 Comments

Us and Them

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

8 Comments

Who Is This God?

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

Aug 10

7 Comments

God in Motion

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

Jun 29

27 Comments

The Naked Anabaptist 7: People of Peace

Well, what I originally intended to be a relatively brief blog series has turned out to be a three-month odyssey of procrastination, but we have finally arrived at the seventh and final of Stuart Murray’s seven core convictions of Anabaptists (from The Naked Anabaptist): Read more

Jun 2

28 Comments

Only Two Scenarios?

It seems like every time I walk into a bookstore these days there are a handful of new books on the shelf, confidently explaining how science has shown this or that religious understanding of the world to be unfounded, misguided, false, naive, etc. The obvious response to such claims—and one that is frequently made—is to question just how it is that science could “prove” or disprove anything about an overall worldview within which science is located.   Read more

Apr 20

8 Comments

The Naked Anabaptist 4: Good News to the Poor

After another (unintentionally long) hiatus, on to the fourth of Stuart Murray’s seven core convictions of Anabaptists (from The Naked Anabaptist): Read more

Apr 13

20 Comments

A “Thick Enough” Worldview

The controversy around the Bruce Walke story has led to some interesting conversations (on this blog, and elsewhere) about the relationship between science and faith, questions about how we read Scripture, and others. One of these conversations took place this morning. Read more

Apr 12

14 Comments

More on Waltke

For those still following the story of Bruce Waltke, I thought I would pass along a few interesting and helpful links I came across today. It seems the story of Walke’s resignation from the Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL due to comments he made about the compatibility of evolution and Christian faith touched off a bit of a storm in the blogging world. As is so often the case in the wild and woolly world of blogging, there can be a lot more heat generated than light. Many portrayed the Waltke/RTS situation as something approaching a modern-day Galileo case, with RTS being cast in the role of inquisitors. Not surprisingly, the truth turns out to be not quite as sensational. Read more

Mar 29

16 Comments

The Naked Anabaptist 3: After Christendom

After a not so brief hiatus, on to the third of Stuart Murray’s seven core convictions of Anabaptism: Read more

Mar 12

22 Comments

The Naked Anabaptist 2: The Bible

On to the second of  Stuart Murray’s seven core convictions of Anabaptists (from The Naked Anabaptist): Read more

Mar 8

38 Comments

Varieties of Unbelief

I’m a little all over the map this morning, but here’s a few loosely connected thoughts/reflections about unbelief on a Monday morning…

This month’s issue of our denominational magazine, the MB Herald, is about atheism/unbelief and contains an article by yours truly. It is a bit of a hybrid piece—a discussion of the new atheists (Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris), a reflection upon conversations with a friend (no stranger to regular readers of this blog), among other things. Based on what I’ve read of the issue thus far, there are a number of articles and features definitely worth checking out. Read more

Mar 4

15 Comments

The Naked Anabaptist 1: Jesus People

On to the first of Stuart Murray’s seven core convictions of Anabaptists: Read more

Mar 2

23 Comments

The Naked Anabaptist

Perhaps surprisingly, despite the fact that I earn my living at a Mennonite church, very little of my formal education was devoted to learning about Anabaptist history and theology. I took one year of Bible College at a Mennonite school when I was 19, but that was about it. I studied philosophy at university and deliberately chose to pursue graduate studies at an inter/trans-denominational institution. I received bits and pieces of the Anabaptist story along the way in my studies, I read the occasional book by a Mennonite author, and I almost always worshiped in Anabaptist churches so it wasn’t like I was clueless. But I’ve never exactly swam in the deep end of the Anabaptist pool. Read more

Feb 26

23 Comments

The Crap Circle

Controversy around the nature of the atonement continues to bubble beneath the surface in some corners of the Canadian MB Conference. Specifically, some have problems with a book by MBBS professor Mark Baker and Joel Green that questions the primacy of penal substitution and seeks to recover other important biblical metaphors that address what the cross accomplishes and why and how. Some think Baker’s understanding of the atonement ignores (or at least minimizes) God’s wrath and denies the fact that Jesus died as a substitute for our sins. There have been charges of heresy, and plenty of misunderstanding and miscommunication throughout the discussion. Read more

Dec 8

19 Comments

Transforming Christian Theology: Conclusion

The fourth and final entry in my discussion of Philip Clayton’s Transforming Christian Theology (parts one, two, and three). Read more

Nov 30

38 Comments

Transforming Christian Theology: Part Three

On to part three of my discussion of Philip Clayton’s Transforming Christian Theology (parts one and two here and here). Read more

Nov 23

18 Comments

Transforming Christian Theology: Part Two

On to part two of my discussion of Philip Clayton’s Transforming Christian Theology (part one here). Read more

Nov 9

34 Comments

Transforming Christian Theology: Part One

For the last few weeks, Philip Clayton’s Transforming Christian Theology has been sitting annoyingly on my desktop, mocking my lack of time and ambition to get to it (as promised here). Well, despite the fact that the AAR Meeting has come and gone (the event these reviews were supposed to lead up to), I’ve finally started reading the book and over the course of the next few weeks will be doing a four-post series of reviews. Better late than never, I say! Read more

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