Israel had its Jeremiah, America has Frank Schaeffer. Just as the elite in Judea did not want to hear the prophet Jeremiah and his announcement that God rejected sacrificial systems and economies of exchange, and that if Israel did not turn she would be sent into exile, so also American Christians may not want to hear the truth behind the reality of the coming human created apocalypse that seems to be heading our way. At some point we have got... Read more

There is a recent hour long YouTube video making the rounds in certain groups that shows a Jewish rabbi saying that God created the Hebrew Language and then by that language created the universe. It is an interesting and some might even say “inspirational” video. It teaches an old rabbinic doctrine that the creation of the alphabet gives rise to Torah and that through Torah (or the Hebrew alphabet) all things were created. The rabbi’s even concocted the story of... Read more

“Christ didn’t send me to preach the good news with clever words so that Christ’s cross won’t be emptied of its meaning. 18 The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are being destroyed. But it is the power of God for those of us who are being saved. 19 It is written in scripture: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the intelligence of the intelligent. 20 Where are the wise? Where... Read more

Thanks to all of you for your comments on my blog posts this past week. You may wonder why I am not commenting. The answer is simple. I am having problems with Disqus. I cannot even see your comments (yet) That problem will soon be remedied. And thanks for stopping by! Read more

I believe…in the church. So says the Creed. Yet gathering together as a Christian community, has for some time now, been on the wane. There was first the cry of the 1960’s and 70’s that ‘Jesus was just all right” but not the church. Then came the resurgence of conservative Christianity in the 1980’s and 90’s and mega-churches blossomed. Since the turn of the millennium there has been an abandonment of the church. A Barna research poll in 2011 listed six... Read more

Yesterday in my post ‘Is Molech Hidden in Christianity?’ I asked the question about the use of punishment in atonement. I was grateful to see that Lawrence Garcia took this particular excavation seriously enough to respond. There are two significant quotes by Pastor Garcia worthy of exploration because I think they show the crucial demarcation between those who insist on holding to some form of PSA (penal substitution atonement) and those who reject it entirely. Garcia argues that I miss the... Read more

What happens when you take the concept of punishment out of your theology? Notice that I said punishment, not judgment. When you remove punishment from your theology it affects everything you preach. Instead of a Janus-faced god, you find instead the One God revealed as Abba, Son and Spirit, internally self-consistent and self-giving. You may genuinely construct a theology grounded in the only theological axioms found in the New Testament (I John), viz., “God is Love” and “God is Light.”... Read more

Even though I am only 57 years young, my latest book is an autobiography of sorts. I have enjoyed studying theology, church history and biblical studies for almost 40 years. Most of that time was spent without feelings. I knew what feeling were, but couldn’t identify them. I could talk the talk but had no idea how to crawl let alone walk the walk. I hated feelings. I especially hated feelings when it came to my faith. For me, faith... Read more

Why do Christians who seek to justify violence always seem to turn to the Cleansing of the Temple narrative? Is it a psychological need to believe that Jesus was like us in every way? No doubt there might be some of that in the argument but I think it goes much deeper than that. In a recent argument with a well known charismatic Christian personality over Jesus’ nonviolence, I noticed a disturbing trend in the comments on his FB post.... Read more

You cannot stand at the gates of Auschwitz and be Calvinist for if this is how God controls the universe then God is arbitrary and not very helpful. You cannot stand at the gates of Auschwitz and be Conservative Evangelical for the Jews you see go “right from Hitler’s flames into God’s flames” (Brad Jersak in Hellbound?). You cannot be drunk on the Holy Ghost and stand at the gates of Auschwitz and feel only the good, the true and... Read more