We humans have a long and storied tradition of turning divinity into a thing. One finds the critique of idolatry, carving wood and stone and worshipping them, all the way back in the pre-Exilic period of the Jewish Exile. Ancient figurines unearthed in burial chambers are hypothetically understood to be iconic divinities by archeologists. Christianity is not immune to this temptation either. As Roman culture and Christianity blended in late antiquity, the use of art to craft images and icons... Read more

Breachers face the greatest threat in warfare. These are the first wave, the one who first make it over or through the walls, who storm the fortress. Jesus called John the Baptist such a breacher. The breach in the great wall of Christianity has already happened, it will just take a while for it to filter down into the churches. Pauline studies, Johannine and Lukan studies, studies in the early church, as well as many other disciplines and sub-disciplines and debates... Read more

I think that fifty years from now (if we haven’t decimated ourselves as a species), church historians will look back on our time as one of the most challenging yet beautiful times in the history of Christianity. One could say the Gospel has completely broken free of Christendom. Or one could say that Christendom gave birth to the Gospel. Perhaps you might say Mother Church carried the Gospel in the womb of her theology, liturgy and spirituality. And now she has given... Read more

  Why do people today seek extraordinary experiences? Why do people seek to have experiences that are outside what one would call ‘the norm?’ These are the questions I would like to ask my charismatic friends today. This past year as I have engaged charismatic Christians I have heard and seen a lot of people who seek to have an encounter with God. The emphasis in these circles appears, to me at least, to be motivated by a genuine desire... Read more

A discussion of how Christianity views, understands and interacts with ancestors in terms of the Spirit world requires a fair bit of nuancing. This is due to the fact that there is no single position that one can call ‘Christian’ in this regard. There are multiple positions depending on one’s worldview, which for convenience sake I shall label pre-modern, modern, post-modern and, for lack of a better term, trans-modern. There is no singular view of the ‘spirit world’ in the... Read more

The New York post has an article today by Robert Goldberg which details the inadequacies of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring to market life-saving medications.   If you are American, this article will only make you shake your head in disbelief at the way bureaucracy and antiquated thinking can stymie real progress. On the other hand I saw in this article an analogy to contemporary Christianity. Is it not also the case that huge swaths of Christianity are... Read more

Christians have many ways of honoring ancestors. I realize that what I know about honoring ancestors in Christianity is very selective and bound to my cultural and ecclesial experiences. Being on the road away from my books right now makes it more difficult. At any rate, as they say here in the UK “I’ll carry on.” Some have areas in their homes where a collection of pictures of a loved one dwell. Sometimes a vase of flowers can be put... Read more

The Fundamentalists and Conservative Evangelicals are right about this: there are only two perspectives, that of God and that of humanity. The phrase they use for this is what they call the difference between “God’s word and man’s word.” With reference to this they mean that the divine perspective is truth while the human perspective is a lie. Of course texts like “Let God be true and every man a liar” (NIV Romans 3:4) provide ‘biblical’ support for this view.... Read more

[The following is a reflection I wrote a decade ago for my website www.preachingpeace.org] II Cor 12:1-10 Anthropological Reading “Mysticism does not have the patience to wait for God’s revelation” – Soren Kierkegaard In our text today, Paul describes an ‘out-of-body’ experience he had. It is the only place in the Pauline letters that he does so.  If we date the Corinthian correspondence, following Robert Jewett’s chronology, to sometime in the year 55, then Paul is alluding to an experience... Read more

Dear friends, I am honored to be a little voice amongst such powerful voices. Thank you for the privilege of being part of this fantastic channel on Patheos. A few of you know me (and yes, I am still crazy after all these years), but most wouldn’t I think. My area of interest has been in the use of Rene Girard’s mimetic theory to read texts, specifically biblical texts. I understand the gospel to unmask the generative scapegoating mechanism that... Read more