For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
On one of my business trips, some colleagues and I lay outside on the lawn at the bed and breakfast we were staying at, looking up at the stars. Somebody remarked that a heaven where there was no pain or hardship would not be a heaven at all. She pointed out that all of her... Continue Reading →
The problem with believing that God was punishing Jesus on the cross for our sins, as Michael Hardin points out, is that it doesn’t take sin nearly seriously enough. It limits the power of sin to the personal. In other words, it implies that the primary problem with sin is that I will be harshly... Continue Reading →
We did not arrive here by accident. Make no mistake about it, the mess that is the world was created by our own actions, rooted in our beliefs and values, shaped by the way we think about who we are and how we ought to relate to others. If our misogyny allows us to perpetuate... Continue Reading →
My recent move towards a nonviolent understanding of atonement has heightened my awareness of Christianese: the meta-language of evangelical Christianity of which I am becoming increasingly critical. The problem with this kind of meta-language is that there are doctrines and ideologies deeply embedded in the words and phrases that are never questioned because the language has... Continue Reading →
I am immensely fortunate to have the colleagues that I do. They are more than colleagues – they are friends. It is why, even though it is difficult to be away from home as much as my job sometimes demands, I enjoy my work-related travels. This week we were in the Cape, the first stop... Continue Reading →
Interacting with a god is a tricky thing. Not least of all because by definition a being outside of our dimensional constraints would be incomprehensible to us. Our minds simply cannot conceive of a god. Imagine that a drawing was truly two dimensional (it is not, really, because the thin layer of ink constitutes height,... Continue Reading →
When I published Teddy a couple of weeks ago, one of my friends commented that its nihilistic outlook and my Christian faith might seem at odds. My response was that I believe that nihilism and faith are not so far removed from each other as it might seem. The concept of Nihilism is largely... Continue Reading →
I think one of the most damaging obstacles to the modern Christian understanding of God has come in the form of three innocuous letters. It is not the word they form that is the problem, but where that word has been placed. That word is “the”. Hardly an offensive word, I concede. How on earth,... Continue Reading →
I have heard it preached from too many pulpits. Well-meaning preachers, who have never really taken the time to reflect on the analogy properly, depict Jesus on the cross as the bridge spanning an impassable chasm between us and God. Alternatively, we are at the bottom of a ladder, trying to attain God’s impossible standards... Continue Reading →
After my post about prophesy a few weeks ago, one of my Facebook friends posted the following response (I have cut out only the salutations): “My thoughts are that you have touched on a side of the prophetic that gives the church a bad rep and I have also lost patience with oily televangelists. LOL!... Continue Reading →
Vapors In The Wind 