Tag: Theology

  • 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 have nothing to do with CRT.

  • 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.”

  • Loving others in their context needs to happen FIRST

    When I was in graduate school, I took a very formative course on black church history with an African American pastor. I vividly recall him saying in class, when discussing racism in the church, “Don’t tell me what you believe about Jesus. Tell me how you feel about black people, and that will tell me everything I need to know…

  • 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.

  • Hacking our way to clarity

    The second half of this Holy Post Podcast has an interview with Philip Yancey. They feature his latest book, which is his memoir. Yancey has been a challenging voice for me for decades. (His interview comes around 49 minutes in.) With our current struggle with terminology like “deconstruction”, Yancey represents the understanding that some form of deconstruction happens in every…

  • The generosity of life I seek

    Dorothy Day had in incredibly influential man in her life, challenging her to the work she carried among the poor. His life had a profound impact on her. His name was Peter Maurin. She would describe him in her book, The Long Loneliness, as one who sought the common good. He was grounded in his Roman Catholic faith, but broad…

  • 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 at all. It may look slightly…

  • Deconstructing and Reconstructing

    To be fair, I haven’t had the kind of crisis of faith I’ve watched so many others undergo. But I’ve certainly had to step back and examine honestly where I’ve been complacent — or even complicit — in enabling others who have abused their power in the name of the Lord. It’s a process in which I’m still engaged. And,…

  • 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 do in the present matters. It…

  • Heaven and hell isn’t the ultimate question

    If I could get every American conservative Christian to read Surprised by Hope, it would be mandatory reading. Wright forces my thinking away from what I thought was the ultimate question: Who is going to heaven or hell? (And, did God send them there or did humans choose?) Maybe we’re asking wrong questions, and this is what stirs me reading…