Theology – Apprentice 2 Jesus

Pentecostal Orthodoxy

I have carried an awareness about myself for most of my adult life: I am a slow learner. I’ve joked about it from time to time in the presence of others, but I know it to be my personality. It is now to the point of irritation. I’ve picked up a new book, Pentecostal Orthodoxy:Continue reading “Pentecostal Orthodoxy”

The last third project of love and insanity

I love to read. I put goals on Goodreads and then blow past it because I hit streaks where I just want to consume books. I love reading new work and work from the past I’m introduced to, and occasionally re-read past books, like Merton’s Seven Story Mountain or Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy.

Holy Saturday

The tomb is sealed. We know the end of the story, so we want to rush on. We want to see that stone rolled away. But it’s Saturday. It is silent. It is dark. That stone laughs at us. Death wins. We don’t know the end of the story on Saturday. Sit in the darkness.Continue reading “Holy Saturday”

Why “CRT” is the new conservative Christian boogeyman

David French gets at fundamental issues with how CRT has become the new dog whistle for conservative Christians. Note this: he makes the bold claim that the definition of CRT was fundamentally and intentionally changed by conservative activists to encompass and enormous number of arguments and ideas about race, including arguments and ideas that haveContinue reading “Why “CRT” is the new conservative Christian boogeyman”

Our misunderstanding of salvation

I have been rekindled in my thoughts concerning “salvation” the past few years. We have such a truncated version of “gospel” that we try to keep it reduced to something like, “Jesus came to save you so when you repent you can know you go to heaven when you die.”

Maybe it’s not “deconstruction” Maybe it’s RECLAIMING

Aimee Byrd writes passionately about lifting up women in the Body of Christ. She is targeted all the time by threatened men who consider themselves “leaders” in the Body of Christ.

EVERY generation deconstructs… and some even reconstruct

I am reading The Long Loneliness, an autobiography of Dorothy Day. It struck me how she went through her own “awakening” in the early 1900s in much the same way I did when I was in college. I reflect on that because “deconstruction” is the “buzz word” of our time… and it’s not really atContinue reading “EVERY generation deconstructs… and some even reconstruct”

I am but a shadow of my future self

How I live now matters. My body matters. My mind matters. It is not discarded in the future, so I can treat my current life any way I want. Current gleanings from NT Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope: I am but a shadow of my future self. How I love now matters. What we doContinue reading “I am but a shadow of my future self”

Notes on redemption

A few notes jotted down on the plan of redemption from NT Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope. Redemption isn’t scrapping what’s there and starting from a clean slate. When I read passages talking about a “new heaven and new earth” that was the mentality I had. The old earth (where we live currently) would beContinue reading “Notes on redemption”

Something missing from the Gospels

I am working my way back through NT Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope, and it is bending my mind all over again. How I used to think about heaven and eternal life was transformed by this book, and I need this refresher. Wright has the reminder for me that the New Testament witness isn’t aboutContinue reading “Something missing from the Gospels”