March 2012
1 post
“We like the world divided into good guys and bad guys, but life isn’t that...”
– Brian MacLaren
February 2012
1 post
January 2012
18 posts
“… the Christian faith today has become so Westernized that it needs to be...”
the parable of the good muslim →
“The Christian life is about turning toward and entering into relationship with...”
– Marcus Borg
Imaging God: Why and How It Matters →
Clustering the Images: Two Models of God
In the minds of those who created the biblical images of God, there was something about each image that they thought of as like God. Biblical metaphors for God are evocative, carrying many rich associations. Many of these metaphors are relational, imaging not only God but ourselves in relationship to God.
Anthropomorphic images portray God in human-like form, king, lord, judge, lawgiver, potter,...
God as mother
“As a woman pastor taught on prayer, she asked her class of eighth graders to write answers to a number of questions. One was “When you pray, what do you call God?” For all of them, their number one answer was “Father”. Another question was “When you pray, what do you pray for?” Number one on all of their lists was “forgiveness.” Is that a...
Deists and Supernaturalists
The two primary theological options of the 17th and 18th centuries > God as Supernatural Theism, one of creation then non-participation, the other as creation then sporadic intervention. Both alike thought of God as “out there” and not here.
The reasons why this concept of God is so common are easy to understand. Much of the language of the Bible and of Christian devotion creates...
Borg and Inspiration
I let go of the notion that the Bible is a divine product. I learned that it is a human cultural product, the product of two ancient communities, biblical Israel and early Christianity. As such, it contained their understandings and affirmations, not statements coming directly or somewhat directly from God. The creation stories in the book of Genesis were Israel’s stories of creation, not...
Paul Tillich
God is not a being but “Being-Itself” or “the ground of being.” God doesn’t exist but instead “God is”. To exist means to stand out from the ground of existence as a separate being. “Things” (stones, stars, people, and so on) exist by being separate things. God does not exist in that sense; rather, God is. The God of theological theism (supernatural theism) is bad theology because it sees God as a...
Compassion
” Compassion means to be moved within oneself as a mother is moved by tenderness and concern for the children of her womb. It is especially associated with feeling the suffering of others.
Saint Paul spoke as such when he said the greatest of the spiritual gifts is love, his more abstract term for what Jesus meant by compassion. “
Marcus Borg
“When the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered; and the received...”
– Alfred North Whitehead
“Righteousness is a term that is frequently found in most translations of...”
disconnected from a suffering world
” Too many Christians today seem disconnected from a suffering world. In an age of massive human suffering from poverty, war, unjust social structures, and the quest for world empire, the real mystery is the moral and political complacency of middle-class American Christians.
But it’s really no mystery. It’s a reflection of a theology that places primary emphasis on individual redemption,...
A parable of two sons
There was a man who had two sons. The older son loved to tell stories and would keep the relatives and servants that made up his father’s household enthralled for hours with his repertoire of tales—not all of them believable—from the family’s eventful history. The younger son was of a much more rational frame of mind and couldn’t tell a joke to save his life.
One day the younger son came to...
December 2011
8 posts
Finding God in the Ordinary
Most everyone’s life is very ordinary. We rise in the morning, go about our business and the world does not pay us any attention at all outside of our circle of influence. Basically, our lives are very ordinary. We go day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year and for most of us our life does not change. I for one like that my life is usually the same. There is...
If you still don't "get" the postmodern... →
founding fathers' beliefs and doubts →
http://www.postost.net/2011/12/christmas-now-then →
Christmas Now and Then
Andrew Perriman
“Be grateful. Gratitude derives from awe, wonder, and intimacy. Greed rises from...”
syncing
tumblr > twitter > facebook
November 2011
3 posts
“Forever Young”
– May the good Lord be with you
Down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness
surround you when you’re far from home
And may you grow to be proud
Dignified and true
And do unto others
As you’d have done to you
Be courageous and be brave
And in my heart you’ll...
what is god →
“Distinguish between worry and concern:
While it’s healthy to be concerned about...”
October 2011
1 post
September 2011
9 posts
Compassion: Charity + Justice (brilliant!)
Compassion takes two forms in life: charity and justice. The word charity is derived from caritas, Latin for love. It is the personal form of compassion. Its objective is to alleviate the effects of suffering. Justice on the other hand seeks to eliminate the root causes of suffering. It is about transforming the social structures and systems that produce poverty and suffering. Justice is the...
a postmodern faith
A postmodern faith will most likely have these elements:
more focus on Jesus, less on the church
more about personal transformation, less about personal salvation
more about lifestyle, less about doctrine
more about service, less about worship
more about grace, less about fear
more communal, less individualistic
more loving, less legalistic
more accepting, less judgmental
more...
holiness or compassion ? →
The Inevitability of the Rise of Liberal... →
A Brain on Forgiveness →
Varieties of irreligious experience →
Nearly everything believed @ self-control is wrong →
about time >> ... many of the fundamental tenets... →
August 2011
4 posts
the death of America's god →
” We are now facing the end of Protestantism. America’s god is dying. Hopefully, that will leave the church in America in a position where it has nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, all you have left is the truth. “
Recalibrating the Gospel →
Andrew Perriman →
July 2011
6 posts
Debt-Ceiling Dreams →
Re-thinking Genesis 1 - A Leap of Truth, Biologos... →
Evolutionary Creationism > The doctrine of... →
