The goodness of God is seen everywhere, and in everything, but it is particularly evident in the gift of food. One of our customs is to “say grace” every time we partake of a meal, and this is actually a very sound tradition. The Bible doesn’t command it anywhere, but it is truly a devout …
Philosophy and Me
I think it was Paul Simon who said somewhere that his “life of education hasn’t hurt me none.” I can’t quite say the same thing, but at least I survived it. I grew up in a conservative evangelical home, a place where Christ was consistently honored and loved. But it being the late fifties and …
Reading Carefully
I am posting this here so that I don’t run into my own word limit (!) in the comment boxes. I don’t believe that Michael is reading McLaren carefully. And I know that he did not read or respond to my penultimate paragraph in the “What Actually Is the Case” post carefully. In his comment, …
Lord’s Day Prayer 48
Our Father and Lord, we are a grateful family, belonging to a grateful people. We rejoice that we have the privilege of worshipping You tomorrow, and we are glad that we can mark the beginning of Your holy day, this feast day, with celebration, feasting, laughter and wine. We are grateful for our salvation in …
Nevertheless
Jesus told His disciples that the cup of the Lord’s Supper was the new testament in His blood. But later, in the Garden, when He agonized over His fast approaching death, He prayed that the cup would pass from Him. He was in such agony over this that His sweat was like blood, falling down …
Wine or Grape Juice?
As you know, when we come to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we have wine available in the outer rings of the trays, and grape juice is in the center. We do this because some Christians have developed scruples about drinking wine, and the New Testament is very plain about how such things are to be …
What Actually Is the Case
The title of McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy, comes from a phrase coined by Hans Frei. And while there are serious objections to what Frei argues for elsewhere, he certainly has a firm grasp on the nature of pre-critical Christian thought. As he puts it, “In the earlier Protestant interpretive tradition, we have noted, the …
Aboriginal Hip
“The patron saints of the counterculture idea are, of course, the Beats, whose frenzied style and merry alienation still maintain a powerful grip on the American imagination. Even forty years after the publication of On the Road, the works of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs remain the sine qua non of dissidence, the model for aspiring …
That Wholesome Glow
“The critic of Thomas Kinkade paintings, where all the puddles on the ground have their eerie radioactive glow, and all the bungalows look like the living room has just caught on fire, is assumed to be a critic who is hostile to home, hearth, and wholesome family values. But the actual object of his hostility …
Inerrancy Too Weak
In the past I have criticized the inerrantist position (as popularly conceived) as being too weak. And in dealing with the assumption that theological conservatives somehow want the Bible to be their foundation for certainty about universals, thus making me a “foundationalist,” which I hotly deny, I find that I still have to explain how …