Skip to content

Apr 14

3 Comments

Update

Well, I haven’t posted anything for a while here, so I though I would provide a brief update for those who are interested.

I wrote my last exam (!) yesterday afternoon, and am looking forward to a little bit of time off now before I start research on my thesis this summer. It was a very strange feeling walking out of school yesterday knowing that I have likely written my last major exam in this academic journey I began five years ago. My hand is certainly grateful—they still haven’t figured out a way to let us use laptops for exams at Regent, and 27 pages of handwriting leaves the digits feeling a little cramped to put it mildly. It’s a relief to close the chapter of preparing for and worrying about these three hour “information dumps” that are worth such significant portions of final grades… Read more

Apr 7

2 Comments

A Different Kind of Easter Message

Easter is the season for celebrating Jesus and what his death and resurrection accomplished for the world. It seems to be one of those times of the year when everyone who has some nominal identification with the Christian tradition finds their way back to a church service. Apparently, even some members of the Toronto Maple Leafs have taken an interest in churchgoing and prayer during this, the most important period of the Christian calendar, in the hopes, I presume, that God is as concerned that the New York Islanders lose tomorrow as they are. Read more

Apr 2

7 Comments

To What End, Ethics?

One of my philosophy professors at the University of Lethbridge once said something to the effect that all higher education is, in some form or another, about learning how to read a book, and the farther I have gone in my academic journey, the more I have realized the truth of this statement. I have actually found blogging about the books I read to be a helpful way of learning how to do this, both in terms of processing them more fully, and learning how to articulate their arguments more adequately through the discussions that sometimes follow. So, having said that, on to what’s currently distracting me from my studies… Read more

Mar 30

4 Comments

Rewind?

Well here’s a story that’s bound to generate a bit of controversy especially given our current political climate. I saw this on a newsstand as I was waiting for Naomi and the kids at the airport last week, and I had to do a double-take to make sure I saw the headline correctly. I’m not sure it’s exactly the kind of thing some in America are looking for when they seek to “get the bible back in the classroom,” but it’s a somewhat surprising argument to find in a major news magazine nonetheless. The following quote offers a summary explanation of sorts as to why such a “step back” might be a good thing: Read more

Mar 22

72 Comments

Tending our Gardens

As some of you may know, I’m hoping to do a thesis this year which focuses on the problem of evil in some form or another. With an eye towards that, I’m currently researching a history paper on the Lisbon earthquake and the decline of philosophical optimism in the eighteenth century. Read more

Mar 16

15 Comments

Comb-Overs and the Kingdom of God

I’m bald.

I thought I would start with a frank admission of the fact that my own head is, shall we say “sparsely populated” lest anyone think that in what follows I am poking fun at a segment of the population for which I have no affinity. I’ve probably been shaving my head at least since I was twenty-five, so I feel the pain of and stand in solidarity with all those men out there for whom combs and shampoo represent hazy memories of a distant and beautiful past… Read more

Mar 13

Does Jesus Make a Difference?

Well I’ve returned to Peter Rollins in the last couple of days, and it seems that I’m not quite done musing on this guy’s ideas (well-intentioned promises to the contrary). Forgive the overlap and repetition that will undoubtedly occur in what follows, but I do feel that it is important to wrestle with ideas such as the ones Rollins is advocating. He is a thinker who is certainly committed to taking the postmodern challenge to faith and epistemology seriously; however I wonder if he sometimes goes farther than either faith or philosophy requires him to. Read more

Mar 11

1 Comment

What He Said

I’m providing the following link to Ben Witherington‘s recent post about blog etiquette. I’m not doing this because I feel that discussion and debate on this blog has been particularly rancorous or uncivil or anything like that. Far from it.

I have, however, had a few recent attempts to post comments anonymously. Here I am in agreement with Dr. Witherington’s “First Commandment”—if you can’t at least identify yourself in some way and stand behind a comment you wish to make public, then it’s not going to appear here. Again, this is not a common occurrence by any means, but clarity on these matters is always better than confusion.

Mar 3

15 Comments

Something about Forests and Trees…

Well, this really is a head-scratcher for me. This morning I came across this truly baffling article in the New York Times. Leaders of several conservative Christian groups have apparently drafted a letter with the expressed purpose of attempting to dissuade the Washington policy director of the American Association of Evangelicals, Rev. Richard Cizik, to stop speaking on the problem of global warming. Read more

Feb 25

15 Comments

The Possibility of Disinterested Love

I’ve posted a few reflections on Peter Rollins’ How (Not) to Speak of God in the last couple of weeks, and I alluded to some views of his which might find their way into a post at some time. Well that time is now. Rollins has some interesting ideas about how human beings are to love in response to God—ideas that I am having some difficulty going along with (I promise this will be my last post about this book, so maybe you can humour me for a while longer…). Read more

Feb 21

1 Comment

The Quarrel

Last Saturday, Naomi and I had the entirely unusual and entirely pleasant experience of an entire day in Vancouver without the kids (some friends had generously offered to let them have a sleepover from Friday to Saturday). After a leisurely morning where we could actually sleep in and have an enjoyable breakfast at a cafe on Main Street, we went to Pacific Theatre and saw the Canadian Premiere of The Quarrel by Joseph Brandes and Joseph Telushkin. Read more

Feb 17

13 Comments

Truth Telling

I’ve finished reading the “theory” part of Peter Rollins’ book that I brought up in a previous post and I have to say that it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There are times when Rollins is really insightful, and offers a genuinely illuminative way of looking at or understanding the nature of faith. At other times, I was completely baffled at why he would introduce certain ideas into his scheme. I’ll post about the latter another time… Read more

Feb 13

4 Comments

Cognitive Dissonance

I came across an interesting article yesterday morning, which raises a whole bunch of important issues from my perspective. The story deals with Marcus R. Ross, a geologist who recently completed a doctoral dissertation at the University of Rhode Island. The subject of his dissertation was “the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago.” According to his supervisor, his work was flawless – a brilliant piece of scientific research. So far so good… Read more

Feb 11

2 Comments

Bonhoeffer II

Just wanted to post a brief follow up to a discussion Dale and I have been having on the prominence of the resurrection vs the incarnation vs the crucifixion. In a previous post, I had reacted against Peter Rollins’ claim that our faith ought not to depend on the triumph or victory of the resurrection. At issue is where we ought we to locate the primary significance of the redeeming work of Christ. Read more

Feb 7

16 Comments

Hypernymity?

I’m currently reading through a little book by Peter Rollins called How (Not) to Speak of God. Rollins seeks to lay out some of the theory and praxis behind the movement known as the “emerging church,” and in so doing attempts to re-emphasize what is sometimes referred to as the “apophatic” strand of Christian tradition. Put briefly, this tradition sees God as so radically transcendent that it is more appropriate to speak of him in terms of negation—what he is not—because all of our positive statements fail to capture his essence, and communicate only our own understanding of God. Read more

Feb 5

2 Comments

Strange Days II

My post about the jarring experience of attending a Regent chapel which highlighted the monstrous evils that plague our world followed by a celebration of the blessing of a new library generated a surprising amount of interest. As the discussion seems to have drawn to a close, and I’m not sure people will be checking back, I thought I would highlight the most recent comment. Personally, I was greatly encouraged to hear from this man, and am thankful not only for his generous contribution toward the building of the library that I now enjoy, but that he took the time to describe what goes on behind the blessings that people like me wonder endlessly about. It was instructive and inspiring to see that these incongruous experiences need not be paralyzing—there are people out there whose “lives have theological outcomes” in important and commendable ways.

Feb 4

2 Comments

Preferred Futures

I thought I would throw out some thoughts about a book I read last week and this morning’s church service. Last week, a good chunk of my bus time was spent reading a book I picked up for a couple of bucks at a used bookstore on Broadway. Albert Camus’ The Outsider was an interesting read, but one that left me feeling a little bewildered, somewhat annoyed, and deeply saddened by the bleak outlook on life it portrays. Read more

Jan 30

57 Comments

Strange Days

Today was a strange day. Chapel at school was a bit of a grim exercise, as we were reminded of some of the atrocious evils human beings are perpetrating against each other, and our responsibility to resist these evils and work toward the peace, harmony, and justice that we believe will ultimately characterize God’s redeemed world. Stories of murder and rape from Sudan and Rwanda, human trafficking from Eastern Europe, and drug addiction and prostitution in our own backyard here in Vancouver painted a pretty desperate and hopeless picture of what humanity is capable of. Our world is a sick, hurting, and evil place, and it was painful to be brought face to face with that fact again this morning. Read more

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →