This blog series is taken, more or less as is, from my latest book How The Bible Actually Works. You can read the first posts in this series here and here. The Bible is, if anything, a book, the purpose of which is to tell us what God is like. Some say that “revealing” God to […]
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Tiptoeing Around the Touchy Almighty
This blog series is taken, more or less as is, from my latest book How The Bible Actually Works. You can read the first post in this series here. I mentioned earlier that every issue we’ve looked at thus far—what to do with a fool, how to look at wealth, how to rear children, how […]
Does Your God Recycle?
This blog post is taken, more or less as is, from my latest book How The Bible Actually Works. Should we be the least bit surprised when we, along with some biblical writers, find ourselves wandering beyond the words in the Bible as we think about what God is like, sensing that the God we […]
A Thought about Easter and the Bizarre Christian Faith
I have no problem saying—in fact, I think is it good and healthy to say—that I have, and have always had, some intellectual barriers to the Christian faith. Not all the time, but enough of the time. As I said I don’t mind admitting it, because to do otherwise would be a colossally silly waste […]
Using Truth as a Weapon
Just a few weeks ago the Methodist Church, which represents over 12 Million Christians in America, met in St. Louis, for their General Conference. In a special session they voted on what was called The Traditional Plan, which kept church rules in place that disallowed same-sex marriages and gay clergy. In one presentation, Nancy Denardo, […]
Can the Bible Be “Trusted” and What Does That Even Mean?
The Bible bears the marks of the messiness of the diverse human drama. Christian theology, if it wishes to be compelling and speak into people’s lives, needs to incorporate that fact, not shy away from it.
Leaning Into a Life of Never-Arriving
In my journey of faith, if I’m honest, I’ve always wanted to get somewhere. As a teenager, I thought I had God figured out. Sure, I could continue to grow in my understanding of God but all the major puzzle pieces were in place and no tectonic shifts were going to take place. That felt […]
Maybe Certainty Makes Jesus Angry & Other Inspirational Thoughts
If I ever posted inspirational quotes on social media, which I don’t because it would ruin my sarcastic win streak I have going on Facebook, I know which one I would post first. It’s a paragraph from Jack Caputo’s book What Would Jesus Deconstruct? that has inspired me ever since I read it when it came […]
Judaism and the Jesus Movement Were Both Solving an Old Testament Problem
Hear me out. One way (not the only way, but one way—hold your horses) of describing the Old Testament is as a story of striving for national identity. Yeah, that sounds “secular,” but it’s not. We’re in the ancient world here, folks, and there is no secular vs. sacred dichotomy when it comes to nationalism. […]
The Bible, Wisdom, and Our Sacred Responsibility
[The following is adapted from the conclusion of How the Bible Actually Works.] Christians and Jews have always been “reimagining” God—adapting the sacred past of their tradition to discern God’s presence here and now. That process of adapting the past is also baked directly into the Christian Bible itself, Old and New Testaments. The biblical […]
