Latest Posts
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Haggai and the Expectation of the Experience of God’s Presence: Part 2
Read more: Haggai and the Expectation of the Experience of God’s Presence: Part 2In a previous blog post on Haggai, I discussed one of the expectations the people of Israel held concerning Yahweh’s (the personal name of God) powerful action on their behalf, an expectation that included their current state of economic affairs. Upon the obedience of his command to rebuild the Temple, they expected to participate, once again,…
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Why You Should Study The Gift
Read more: Why You Should Study The GiftGifts constitute a critical social role in every culture. Though gifts exist throughout the world, the function, definition, and significance of gift-giving can be radically distinct from culture to culture—even contradictory—such that what we call ‘gift’ may be unrecognizable as gift to another from a different culture. These differences make the topic all the more fascinating to study. Ever…
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Coming Out to Diagloue
Read more: Coming Out to DiagloueWe all hold to a worldview. Depending on our personal convictions, we are free to express it however we want. The Two Cities is a collaboration of my evangelical Christian colleagues who freely write about anything related to theology and culture. This isn’t to bring down those who may disagree, but the hope is to…
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Mother May I?
Read more: Mother May I?SPOILERS AHEAD! RUN FOR THE HILLS! Darren Aronofsky’s new film, mother!, is absolutely stunning. I was mesmerized and blown away. Let me say at the outset that one’s enjoyment of this movie is almost entirely based upon two factors: (a) knowing as little about the film as possible before seeing it, and (b) actually figuring out…
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Faith and Love: The Inconvenient Truth About a “Personal Relationship With God”
Read more: Faith and Love: The Inconvenient Truth About a “Personal Relationship With God”How’s your relationship with God? It’s a question many Christians and religious people ask of each other. When I answer this question over the years, I typically work my way through the same cluster of questions—am I praying and spending private time with God, am I avoiding certain sins, am I maturing in my likeness to…
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Atonement Conference at St Andrews
Read more: Atonement Conference at St AndrewsHere is the CfP for a conference on the Atonement at the University of St Andrews. I co-organized a few of the earlier iterations of this symposium: one on Reactions to Empire and another on Ancient Reading techniques. I’m happy to see that the symposium is still going strong. If you do any work on…
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Reflections of a Recovering Fatalist
Read more: Reflections of a Recovering FatalistI was an athlete growing up, extremely competitive both then and now, and never gave up during any sort of competitive setting no matter how dire the situation was. For whatever reason, this attitude stayed on the field and was entirely vacant for most of my life outside of sports. On the field, I was…
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Do you do well to be angry?
Read more: Do you do well to be angry?This week’s lectionary readings began with Jonah; to be specific, the end of his story. Taken all together, the four readings weave a portrait of the encounter of an angry man with a generous God. This fall, God has been generous, and I have been angry. So this was a helpful week. Here’s what I’ve learned,…
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The True Story Behind The Handmaid’s Tale
Read more: The True Story Behind The Handmaid’s TalePhoto Credit: https://www.emmys.com/events/fyc/2017/the-handmaids-tale The Handmaid’s Tale, a popular Hulu drama series, just won eight Emmy Awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. The series, which is based on the book by Margaret Atwood, follows the story of Offred, a handmaid, during a time where America falls under an extreme fundamentalist “Christian” totalitarian…
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Leaving your Church in Tears
Read more: Leaving your Church in TearsI left my Church this week, and it was the most painful and beautiful thing I have ever done. For many people, Church can be a great source of pain, for others, it is a building or a place to gather. For some, Church can be a crutch, a community that supports them. As for…