Monthly Archives: June 2011
Pub Theology Recap June 16
Whose idea is it to recap a discussion on theology over beer a week later? Not a great idea.
But here goes anyway.
These were last week’s topics, and I’ll do my best to give a couple thoughts that were expressed:
1. What is your favorite part about summer?
2. How does one move forward after a tragedy? How do you explain it?
3. Is history science or art? (watch Stephen Colbert’s re-enactment of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride!)
4. “Children are bad at lying for the same reason that adults are. We are born with a conscience (which is God’s voice in our soul) that says it is wrong for us to bear false witness.”
5. The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.
6. “The point of the universe is the hallowing of God’s name.” Continue reading
Filed under Culture, Politics, Pub Theology, Relationships, Theology
The Wars of the Lord 6
Someone responded to the last post with, “OK, so what? How do we read these texts in light of some of this stuff?”
Let’s try to get to that in this post. I think this is our last one on the subject. (For now!) Continue reading
The Wars of the Lord 5
Some great responses to my earlier posts – I appreciate some of the pushback as well as some of the alternate possible understandings. The issue no doubt merits further review, and I should clarify that I’m not sure where I fall on this whole discussion, as I’ve been by and large presenting the views in Thom Stark’s book. I think he raises some very valid questions, and isn’t willing to settle for the usual answers or simple solutions. That said, I may not agree with him everywhere, and some of you have noted excellent other possible approaches as voiced by Greg Boyd and Walter Brueggemann among others.
The question in this post is this: did these brutalizing campaigns and slaughter of the people of Canaan and elsewhere actually happen?
I suppose many of us would initially respond to that question with, “Of course it happened – it’s in the Bible.” But I wonder if it’s that simple. Continue reading
The Wars of the Lord 4
Some readers no doubt remain dissatisfied with our attempts to understand the conquest narratives in the Bible, in which it appears God is commanding wholesale warfare and destruction.
So what to do? Perhaps we should ignore such texts. Perhaps we should shrug our shoulders and just say, “I don’t know.” (This might be the best idea).
Some would prefer to say, “God is so holy and beyond our understanding that it is not our place to question him or his Word.” (I can hear some “Amens” at this point). Continue reading
Pub Theology Recap June 9
We drew our topics last Thursday from a beach evangelism questionnaire:
1. How would you describe your life in one word?
2. What three things do you most desire out of life?
3. What do you think “God” is like?
4. Who, in your opinion, is Jesus Christ?
5. If you were to die tonight and found yourself standing before God, and he asked you, “Why should I let you into My heaven?” How would you respond? Continue reading
Filed under Pub Theology, Relationships
The Wars of the Lord 3
In our last post we looked at the possibility that God was simply working within a warring culture and showing improvement amidst that.
On further review, it seemed that perhaps that wasn’t entirely true.
Perhaps we need to understand [these texts] another way, within the broader framework of God’s overarching plan for Israel, expressed in the form of his promise to Abraham – that through his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
I think many of us resonate with this, because it seems to echo so much of what we see in the life of Jesus and the early church in the New Testament. Continue reading
The Apocalypse Habit
Revelation. A primer.
How do you feel about this book?
Many of us are a bit intimidated by it. But really, what’s not to like about angels and demons, visions and dragons, beasts with horns, lakes of fire, Satan, blood, scorpions, terror and mass hysteria?
If it scares you, you’re in good company… Continue reading
The Wars of the Lord 2
In my last post we wrestled with difficult texts in the Bible, particularly ones in which God commands the Israelites to annihilate certain people groups, which today we would label as genocide. How are we to understand these texts? Is it possible to square these texts with other biblical presentations of God as a God of love, mercy, and compassion?
Possibly, but it isn’t easy.
One possibility raised to my last post was that God was showing people, in a warring culture, how to act in war. Continue reading
The Wars of the Lord
What do we do with the hard texts of the Bible, like the ones where God tells the Israelites to kill everyone in a certain town, or of a certain people group, including women and children? The biblical record denotes that the Israelites wiped out the Canaanites as they entered the Promised Land, and did it in obedience to God. Continue reading
