(Here’s a post written for nvc.org.au that you might want to read. I realise I don’t ever write about any of the basics; this might be the first in a series. If you’ve studied theology, all of this will be superfluous and potentially erroneous!)
Last night I was watching a secular documentary called Jesus Camp. It’s [...]
Entries from May 2009
May 21, 2009
Basics #1: a guide to labels and why they matter – fundamentalist, evangelical and pentecostal
May 19, 2009
My big brown Strong’s Exhaustative Concordance, or how I think the Bible is being read badly
(I’m going to sound grumpy, but I’m not, I’ve just been thinking a lot about the use of the Bible.)
It concerns me how badly the Bible is used by most evangelicals. Much of it stems from a failure to understand what sort of book(s) the Bible is.
When I was nine, an elder in my Baptist [...]
May 15, 2009
The general blessedness of his life
I want to live with the grace and thankfulness of the Reverend Boughton in Marilynne Robinson’s novel Home:
The house embodied for him the general blessedness of his life, which was manifest, really indisputable. And which he never failed to acknowledge, especially when it stood over against particular sorrow. (p. 3)
This quote doesn’t get close enough [...]
May 4, 2009
‘We need more money’
A reluctant visitor to a megachurch last night, the ‘financial giving’ talk made me feel queasy and miserable. I wanted to run out of there. I believe they have that every week, a talk to encourage everyone to give more money, to ’sacrifice’ for the kingdom.
I guess you have to do that when you employ [...]
May 3, 2009
Is God to blame?
When something bad happens, is it God’s will? And even if it wasn’t, why didn’t he intervene? Gregory Boyd’s book Is God to blame? moving beyond pat answers to the problem of suffering discusses these questions and offers some helpful responses.
Boyd starts by critiquing what he calls ‘the blueprint’ view of the world. According to [...]
