Category: Theology
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From Premillennialism to Amillennialism And Back: An Eschatological Change of Mind
Read more: From Premillennialism to Amillennialism And Back: An Eschatological Change of MindNearly two years ago I wrote a post entitled, “Amillennialism: Rethinking and Critiquing my Eschatology After Five Years.” In that post I analyzed an earlier blog post I wrote back in 2007 called, “How I Became An Amillennialist.” Two years ago I concluded that I was still an Amillennialist, but I realized that many of…
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Reflections On The Contingency of Language
Read more: Reflections On The Contingency of LanguageCigarette smoke drifts over the surface of the desk—the picture of [Pilate’s] wife when she still had her looks, the onyx box from Caesar, the clay plaque with the imprint of his first son’s hand on it, made while he was still a child in nursery school. Pilate squints at the man through the smoke…
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The Case for House Church
Read more: The Case for House ChurchI am sure that to many, the title of this article made you roll your eyes a little bit. You know that the Bible talks about churches meeting in houses but… I mean, that can’t possibly apply to our cultural setting today. You also may have met some rather bizarre individuals who were house church…
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A Bridge Too Short?
Read more: A Bridge Too Short?Earlier this week, my fellow blogger Calvin Sodestrom penned an excellent piece on so called “church marketing.” While I agreed with most everything that Calvin said, I also wanted to press his point further and help us to reconsider how we go about “doing church.” Calvin’s insights were useful but as long as we are…
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Mormon interview: meet Brother Jake, an unconventional Latter Day Saint
Read more: Mormon interview: meet Brother Jake, an unconventional Latter Day SaintSo just who is Brother Jake? Well, he’s a member the LDS church, a blogger, and a really nice guy who I’ve had the privilege of chatting back and forth with over emails. But Jake is probably best known for his series of YouTube videos in which he uses wit and humor to satirically defend…
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Facing the “anti-Mormon” claim
Read more: Facing the “anti-Mormon” claimIn my various dialogues with Mormon missionaries and local leaders of the LDS church (all whom I respect and consider friends), I inevitably bring up something that my LDS counterparts label anti-Mormon. The term is usually given after I have raised some information about Joseph Smith or LDS church history that my friends find so…
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Art in Practice: Meta-Ethics
Read more: Art in Practice: Meta-EthicsThe first thing you’ll probably wonder before reading the rest of this post is: what’s meta-ethics? For many philosophers, it is a topic that is debated by some of the brightest minds about whether rightness and wrongness are worth exploring. In layman’s terms, it’s the simple question, “does ethics exist?”. The last two posts I…
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Being real with ourselves, Mormons, (and everyone else)
Read more: Being real with ourselves, Mormons, (and everyone else)Over the past four months, I have been dialoging with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as Mormons, or LDS. This isn’t my first time (or fourth time, for that matter) but it’s been the best and most rewarding of all my interactions. It’s the first time I…
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Eucharist & Eutychianism
Read more: Eucharist & EutychianismI just have a few thoughts about the Eucharist for today (aka The Lord’s Supper, aka Communion, aka The Sacrament, aka That Thing Your Church Doesn’t Do Enough). I am mostly interested in hearing responses from others who have thought more deeply about this topic. I inherited a fairly low church view of the Eucharist…
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TULIP as Narrative
Read more: TULIP as NarrativeI want to say a few words about every theologian’s favorite acronym—TULIP. I don’t intend to say anything substantially new here. I also don’t mean to ostracize anyone who gets an allergic reaction when Calvinism is mentioned; if you think I’m one of those scary Calvinists who brews his own beer, has a big burly…