“The death of Jesus was the moment when the great gate of human history, bolted with iron bars and overgrown with toxic weeds, burst open so that the Creator’s project of reconciliation between heaven and earth could at last be set in powerful motion. The myrtle will at last replace the brier, and the cypress the thorn.” (N.T. Wright — The Day the Revolution Began, p. 349)
The image bearers and a broken creation
We are reading through Lisa Sharon Harper’s excellent book The Very Good Gospel in a small group at our church for Lent. It is a powerful book focusing on the broken relationships we see all around and the longing to restore shalom in the world.
One example:
When we deprive people of the ability to exercise dominion (agency) and then we exploit the land, the image of God is crushed on earth. God does not reign in that place, and the damage to creation stands as a witness to our rebellion. We were meant to exercise dominion over the rest of creation, not over each other.
Mercy is not always received
Now say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem: This is what the Lord says: I am a potter preparing a disaster for you; I’m working out a plan against you. So each one of you, turn from your evil ways; reform your ways and your actions. But they said, “What’s the use! We will follow our own plans and act according to our own willful, evil hearts.” (Jeremiah 18:11-12, CEB)
Read moreThe Gospel and “Defund the Police”
One of the mantras conservative white Christians have decided to “debunk” so we can get back to our safety bunkers is “Defund the Police.” It really caught our attention after the murder of George Floyd.
Read more“Being saved” and “getting to heaven”
When we have typically thought of the gospel in western evangelicalism, it has been around the questions like, “How are my sins forgiven?” and “How do I get to heaven?”
N.T. Wright turns my thinking in a different direction:
Read moreThe reckoning we don’t recognize
Earlier this week, I gave some links to issues regarding black brothers and sisters leaving white evangelical spaces.
Now, the Southern Baptists are losing Beth Moore. (I am sure many them think this is a GLAD moment for them.)
Her departure is “tectonic in its reverberations,” said Jemar Tisby, the president of a Black Christian collective called the Witness. “Beth Moore has more influence and more cachet with Southern Baptists, especially white Southern Baptist women, than the vast majority of Southern Baptist pastors or other leaders. So her leaving is not just about one individual.”
The unfortunate thing is this is a reckoning in the white evangelical spaces… and we don’t recognize it.
Lament in the time of racism
The trial of Derek Chauvin is supposed to start this week with jury selection in Minneapolis. Chauvin is the former Minneapolis police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd.
In the past year it is necessary to examine how we, as white believers, have done in this issue of racism. Lent should be that time of reflection.
Read moreGeorge Floyd, Lecrae, Lent in the time of reckoning
This week is supposed to begin jury selection for Derek Chauvin, the former police officer charged in the murder of George Floyd. It’s been a year since Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. What have we learned?
Read moreLent needs to deal with our callousness
My Lenten reading has me in Jeremiah. It wasn’t that long ago I was in Jeremiah in my Daily Office readings… It is a constant pummeling, but for good reason.
Read moreDomesticating the Cross of Christ
“It is startling to reflect on just how diminished the average modern Western Christian vision of ‘hope,’ of ‘inheritance,’ or indeed of ‘forgiveness’ itself has become. We have exchanged the glory of God for a mess of spiritualized, individualistic and moralistic pottage.And in the middle of it we have radically distorted the meaning of the central gospel message: that, in accordance with the Bible, sins are forgiven through the Messiah’s death. We have domesticated the revolution.” (NT Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, emphasis added)
