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May 25

4 Comments

Attention Deficit

The use and abuse of technology has been a subject that has interested me for a while now. In our technologically (over) saturated environment the question of how we relate to our tools and what our ability (or inability) to do so in healthy ways says about us as human beings is an important one. What is our cultural addiction to the internet doing to us as people? How is it affecting our ability to think, to concentrate, to devote sustained periods of attention to a task? What will children raised in a technified society be like as adults? These are all live questions, from my perspective, and the signs don’t look so good. Read more

May 22

17 Comments

YES!

I don’t often comment on sports here, but as a lifelong fan of the Calgary Flames, today is a happy day indeed. Mike Keenan’s tenure in Calgary was about two years too long, but all I can say to the powers that be in Flame-land is…

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THANK YOU!

(Actually, I could say a lot more… Like, why did you ever hire this guy? What were you thinking?  I knew this was a bad move right from the start… Nah,  I’ll just stick with thank you).

May 18

16 Comments

The Idols We Worship

I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore, at least not to top-40 type stuff. Aside from the deficiencies of the music on offer, I can’t stand the mindless advertising, the idiotic banter between the morning hosts, and… well, it’s mostly the advertising. Today, however, as we were having lunch with the kids at a local eating establishment, I couldn’t avoid the radio, and I happened to hear something very peculiar called the “Daily Hollywood Gossip Report.” At first, I simply consigned this to the “stupid things you hear on the radio” category of my brain, and dismissed it quickly. But I found myself returning to it as the day went on. Read more

May 12

10 Comments

Our Narcissistic Noise

As one whose professional mandate includes the task of “community building” I have begun to take a more focused interest in what brings and keeps people together, both inside and outside of a church context. I’m hardly the first to notice or comment upon this, but one crucial element of any kind of meaningful community is a meaningful sense of a shared history that we can participate in, both collectively and individually. Communities don’t just form because people really want them or think it would be a good idea to be a part of one. Some orienting story or purpose is a necessary component of any viable and healthy community. Read more

May 6

17 Comments

What We Deserve

The last week or so I have spent a good deal of time on ferries and in buses, trains, and vehicles as I bounce around from convocation ceremonies to retreats and conferences in and around Vancouver. As such, I have had less time than usual to do any writing (in case you’re wondering about the lack of recent posts).

This week I’m at Regent College for a pastors conference. One of the interesting things about many events at Regent is the diversity (ethnic and theological!) of those present. Today I had two interesting conversations, one with an American and one with an Indonesian. In both cases, I found the presuppositions about God and human beings very strange and a bit unsettling. Read more

Apr 29

6 Comments

I Skate, Therefore I Am?

When I was at the University of Lethbridge a few years back, I needed a philosophy course in the summer to fill out my degree requirements and allow me to finish a year early. As I recall, there weren’t very many attractive offerings, so I ended up taking a course called “The Philosophy of Sport.” I thought this would be a kind of cream puff course without much substance, but it ended up being fairly interesting. Philosophers can subject a lot of innocuous looking activities to mind-numbing analysis, after all, so why not sport? Read more

Apr 25

9 Comments

Stand By Me

This one’s been making the rounds but if you haven’t yet seen it, it’s a well-spent five and a half minutes.

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Apr 21

16 Comments

Atonement and the Evils We Face

I’ve been a part of a couple of interesting conversations over the last few days. One was with a bunch of guys on a work retreat and had to do with the nature of God’s knowledge and how it relates to the problem of evil. The second had to do with how to make sense of a tragic situation and how mental illness does/does not factor into the destructive decisions and actions of those close to us. One conversation was pretty detached and abstract, the other intensely personal, but both reminded me of the centrality of theodicy in how we look at the world and of the importance of getting clear exactly how we think that Jesus addresses the deepest questions we have. Read more

Apr 20

1 Comment

Even During the Night

Surely I know the spring that flows
Even during the night.

The eternal spring is hidden,
But surely I know the place where it begins
Even during the night.

I don’t know its source because it has none
But know that its beginnings come from this one,
Even during the night.

I do know that nothing can equal its beauty
And that from it both heaven and earth drink
Even during the night.

I know there is no limit to its depth
And that no one can wade across its breadth,
Even during the night.

Its brightness is never clouded over,
And I know that from it all light flows,
Even during the night.

I know its current is so forceful
That it floods the nations, heaven, and hell,
Even during the night.

The current that is born of this stream,
I know, is powerful and strong,
Even during the night.

The living stream that I so desire,
I see it in this bread of life,
Even during the night.

St. John of the Cross

Apr 15

7 Comments

Playing God

Yesterday’s National Post had an interesting article about a 71 year-old, perfectly healthy Vancouver woman who is seeking the right to die alongside her ill husband. This isn’t legal in Canada, but there is an organization in Switzerland (Dignitas) that is apparently willing and able to administer lethal doses of drugs—after counseling, of course—to those looking to check out of this life. Ludwig Minelli, director of Dignitas, says that although assisted suicide was originally advocated as an escape only for the very ill, “it should be an option for anyone who feels they can no longer go on, and has the mental capacity to make the decision.” Read more

Apr 13

4 Comments

The Way God is Made

Those who believe in the immortality of the soul believe that life after death is as natural a human function as waking after sleep.  The Bible instead speaks of resurrection. It is entirely unnatural. We do not go on living beyond the grave because that’s how we are made. Rather, we go to our graves as dead as a doornail and are given our lives back again by God (i.e., resurrected) just as we were given them by God in the first place, because that is the way God is made.

All the major Christian creeds affirm belief in resurrection of the body. In other words, they affirm the belief that what God in spite of everything prizes enough to bring back to life is not just some disembodied echo of human beings but a new and revised version of all the things which made them the particular human beings they were and which they need something like a body to express: their personality, the way they looked, the sound of their voices, their peculiar capacity for creating and loving, in some sense their faces.

The idea of the immortality of the soul is based on the experience of humanity’s indomitable spirit. The idea of the resurrection of the body is based on the experience of God’s unspeakable love.

Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

Apr 11

Waiting

To be a Christian means to be an optimist because we know what happened on the third day. We know that it worked, that Jesus’ leap of faith was not in vain. His trust was not in vain, and the Father raised him up. He trusted enough to outstare the darkness, to outstare the void, to wait upon the resurrection of the third day, not to try to create his own but to wait upon the resurrection of God. Good Friday inevitably comes into every life. So does Holy Saturday. What is given to God is always returned transformed. That is the eternal third day that we forever await.

Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations

Apr 10

8 Comments

The Offense of the Cross

I was reading a bit in 1 Corinthians 1 this Good Friday morning and was once again struck by the conclusion of the chapter, Paul’s famous description of the “foolishness” of the cross.  Paul describes Christ crucified as a “stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.”  I wonder if this is not sometimes also the case for those of us who “are being saved.”  Do we, too, stumble over the idea of a crucified king or do we just turn it into another kind of “Christian wisdom?”  Does God’s wisdom seem, at times, like foolishness even to those of us who have come to believe in the saving power of what was accomplished at that first Easter? Read more

Apr 3

6 Comments

God’s Self-Justification

Last night, at a young adults group I lead, we got into a discussion about the violence of certain Old Testament texts and how we are to understand/reconcile these with the ethics of Jesus. This led to a discussion of various other evils—from personal struggles down to the most grievous of historical calamities. It was a good discussion, and I was greatly encouraged by the maturity of their views about God, evil, redemption, and hope. Read more

Apr 1

The Comb-Over and the Kingdom—Redux

Just over two years ago, while studying at Regent College in Vancouver, I posted the following tongue-in-cheek reflection on the theological significance of the comb-over.  My stats counter tells me that I am closing in on 1000 views for this post making it quite easily the most viewed post in the short history of this blog (and providing me with an unsolicited dose of humility—I’d like to think I’ve posted on more important and interesting topics, but the numbers don’t lie…). Of course it’s possible that these lofty (for me) stats are due, in large part, to the fact that the post seems to pop up pretty high on the list when “combover” is entered into a search engine, but I prefer to interpret them as unambiguous evidence of my obvious wit and theological dexterity.

So, in honour of approaching the millennium mark for this post, and because it’s April Fool’s Day (and what could be more foolish than attempting to stretch a few wispy strands of hair across an otherwise barren skull… perhaps writing about it?!), I thought I would re-post a lightly edited version of the original.  If nothing else, it provides a reminder that the theological graduate student is, indeed, a very peculiar animal. Read more

Mar 30

12 Comments

Citizens of Heaven

On Sunday I concluded a two month class on Philippians with a discussion of Philippians 3:20 and what Paul might mean when he referred to the church as “citizens of heaven.” This is one of those passages that has been badly misunderstood at various points in the history of the church and which continues to be misunderstood today. More often than not, I think, this passage has been taken to mean something like “this earth/this body are a kind of necessary evil that I must endure until I get to my real home which is heaven.” Simply put, I think this is wrong. Read more

Mar 28

8 Comments

Sinners Anonymous

I’ve been reading Frederick Buechner again lately and, as always, am finding his way of putting things to be quite memorable.  Here’s a quote from Whistling in the Dark that serves as a good reminder about what the church is about as we head into another weekend.  This comes after a brief discussion of the structure and purpose of the Alcoholics Anonymous program: Read more

Mar 23

18 Comments

Good without God

I came across this article a few weeks back and was reminded of it today by a discussion of the age-old question of whether or not we need God to be good over at Jesus Creed.  The author of the article offers an answer in the negative, citing the blissfully secular Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Denmark as shining examples that God is not necessary for human happiness and moral decency: Read more

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