Observing life from here … and there … or wherever life takes him.
I want to revisit an incident that I’ve commented on before, but add a new chapter. It was the 90s. I was on staff at 1,600 member church. It was well known as a congregation where both theological and political liberals and conservatives sat and studied side by side with relative comfort. That was achieved …
Continue reading Facts Aren’t the Half of It
If you haven’t read the previous reflection on Josh.2:4, Follow God, but not too Close, go back and read it now, because I’m not going to turn that soil again. But as I was writing it, I realized that some people are going to find a “gotcha” in my description of an “exclusion zone of …
I asked a question recently about the soul on the r/Orthodox subreddit. I got several mini lectures about the mind instead. All the Orthodox newbies wanted to share their knowledge that the Greek word typically translated “mind” is nous, and it doesn’t quite mean the same thing as the English term “mind.” In true Reddit …
Since I've gotten back to the first half part of vol. 4 of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics and have been posting about it, a friend sent me a note pointing me in the direction of Adam Neder's book, Participation in Christ: An Entry Into Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. Since both Eastern Orthodoxy and Adam Neder …
Continue reading Christ as Theoretical Construct Rather Than Person
Too often a dispute has unintended consequences. In theology nearly all disputes are not between right and wrong, but rather an over- or under-emphasis that leads to error. Heresy (broadly understood) is not a matter of being wrong, it is a matter of being only almost right. But when sides are taken and battle lines …
In my rereading of Church Dogmatics, by Karl Barth, I’ve arrived at IV/1 §61, “Justification.” My first time through CD was back in the late 80s and early 90s, when I was a newly minted Presbyterian pastor. I underlined frequently and made a number of marginal notes in this section. I was clearly impressed with …
I got some push back on my previous Anselm post. So first, let me clarify what I did and didn't say. What I did say is that Anselm is unfairly disparaged, especially among the Orthodox for all the theological sins of the West. I did not say that his doctrine of salvation was adequate. I …
Poor Mr. Anselm! He's one of the favorite whipping boys for the Orthodox when they complain about where the West went astray in their doctrine of salvation. This has always offended me (yes, "offended" ... I don't think it's too strong a term) because while Anselm was a product of thinking and worldview of the …
So I’m back to reading Karl Barth after a hiatus of several months reading Orthodox theology. I’m in his volume on Reconciliation and in the section on judgment. Barth’s method is to look at Divine Reconciliation from a half dozen or more different perspectives. Being a Reformed theologian, Divine judgment is one of the many …
Over the last couple of months I have been trying to write about the Orthodox understanding of the person. But every time I go back and look at what I’ve written, I abandon it because without a broader context, it sounds like propaganda, or even hate speech. Recently Jonathan Pageau posted a forum discussion with …
Continue reading The Cultural Kitsch of Contemporary Personhood
