Posted in church, evangelicalism, theology on 31 May 2007 | 20 Comments »
A couple of ideas have been bouncing around for the past couple of weeks, mainly because of my participation in a class on Eastern Christianity as well as my attendance at the annual meeting of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Society. Both of these experiences brought the question of what role tradition plays (or ought [...]
Posted in theology on 10 April 2007 | 5 Comments »
“The acid test for any theology is this: Is the God presented one that can be loved heart, mind, soul and strength? If the thoughtful answer is; ‘Not really,’ then we need to look elsewhere or deeper.”
I’m nearing the end of this year’s introductory course where we go through many of the basics of [...]
Posted in providence, theology on 27 March 2007 | 5 Comments »
Forgive the relative silence in recent days. The pile of marking on my desk is making posting here more difficult. But to preserve my sanity, I’ll take a few moments to highlight some recent class discussions that have really got me thinking.
I’ve been using N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian as a text book for [...]
Posted in eschatology, providence, theology on 13 February 2007 | 8 Comments »
We’ve had some interesting conversations in class over the past few days regarding the classic debate about God’s knowledge/control of the current and future events and the meaningful choices that we have to make. The conversation ultimate turns on two elements of the Bible’s presentation of how God runs the world: God is sovereign, [...]
Posted in pluralism, public religion, theology on 5 February 2007 | 10 Comments »
Having recently been interested in the possibility of holding religious convictions without considering those who don’t share them to be inferior I was intrigued by the following article that asks whether the very existence of religious beliefs leads inevitably to conflict. Meic Pearse, an author whose insights I have appreciated on other topics (see [...]
Posted in theology on 5 September 2006 | 12 Comments »
Here’s an interesting perspective on one of the root causes of cynicism within the church:
“One of the greatest causes of cynicism among Christians is the way we lather God-talk over our lives in order to obscure realities we consider too painful to discuss directly… Hiding behind a veneer of God-talk that everyone knows is just [...]
Posted in epistemology, theology on 30 August 2006 | 3 Comments »
A brief follow-up to the previous post. I listened to the podcast that one commentor recommended and found it quite interesting. The discussion was basically around the psychology of belief. Why do we believe the things that we do? What kind of ‘knowledge’ is possible and how do faith and reason [...]
Posted in theology on 17 August 2006 | 3 Comments »
I’ve been re-reading parts of Augustine’s Confessions in preparation for the fall when I came across a familiar passage that dealt with the question of what loving God actually looks like. ‘Loving God’ is another one of those catch-phrases that is often used in Christian circles but not often defined. How exactly [...]
Posted in eschatology, theology on 10 August 2006 | 3 Comments »
What do Christians believe the future holds in terms of the ultimate goal or ‘point’ of history? Some recent Newbigin reading has helped clarify this question for me. Christian belief about the future generally falls into one of two categories:
Christian hope is placed in the gradual improvement of the world until God’s rule [...]
Posted in eschatology, theology on 4 August 2006 | 5 Comments »
I’ve been reading up on evangelical history in preparation for a new course this fall and the definition of ‘evangelicalism’ is still proving elusive. I am getting some exposure to some of the main thinkers that have shaped the movement as a whole.
One of the most significant evangelical theologians of the past half-century [...]
