“The revolution will be drowned in the ballot boxes—which is not surprising, since they were made for that purpose.” —Jean-Paul Sartre
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Tag Archives: christianity
He Brews: The Coffee Christianity Obsession
I wish I had a free cup of coffee for every time I saw a picture of someone with a Bible and a cup of coffee.
It has now become a staple of Bible study in America, reaching beyond just millennials, white girls, hipsters, preachers, or even the middle and upper class. Sometimes it seems that everybody except the Mormons is taking their daily coffee with their daily (or at least periodical) Bible reading. If you notice the images in blogs, websites, and posts. Can you drink of the same cup I drink of? Apparently, we all are.
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What I think when an abortion clinic is bombed during an Islamic terrorism crisis on Thanksgiving
I think to myself, when will we American Christians see the irony?
When we label Islam a violent religion with no teachings of peace, when we use violent rhetoric to attack doctors who perform abortions, when we treat refugees like potential threats to a country defined by mass immigration—what are we missing?
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic Friend–Conclusion- and Reflection
Conclusion and Reflection
Many current critics will argue that the Gospels are obstacles to understanding the historical Jesus, but I believe they are the means. I think what plagues many modern scholars is a distrust of the past itself, an almost disdain for people of the past. We live in an “enlightened” age in which we seem to almost study all the horrible things in the past—colonialism, slavery, sexism, war, ignorance, oppression—as if looking for little happy things that stand out because they are like the values we have today. In this way I think most current historians and textual scholars dismiss the Scriptures. As Bauckham quotes Coady,
“The independent thinker is not someone who works everything out for herself, even in principle, but one who exercises a controlling intelligence over the input she receives from the normal sources of information whether their basis be individual or communal.”
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic , Part 11—Transmitting the Jesus of Testimony
Testimony invites trust.
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic , Part 9—Is Oral Tradition Trustworthy?
As with our friend we studied with, we had grown up simply weaned on the idea that since the Holy Spirit directed the writing of the Gospel, God just straight up told each writer what to write word-for-word. This doesn’t explain, for example, why Luke tells Theophilus that he himself researched the Gospel accounts before writing his. So the idea of defending scriptures by appealing to them being well-researched by their authors was actually somewhat new to me. Instead, I was used to them being defended on the grounds that proof of their accuracy was direct proof of their divine origin, regardless of any research done into the story.
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic , Part 8—John, the Beloved Disciple
Whether or not he actually put pen to paper to do it, John the Beloved (who is also John the Elder) wrote the Gospel of John. Four large chapters were spent on this disciple. The Gospel is written the way it is, our author argues, so that original readers would be surprised by the fact that John wrote it. Once original readers get to the end of the Gospel, they have learned enough about John to consider him worthy of being a source of the story, and that is when his identity as the storyteller becomes clear to that audience.
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: A Study with a Skeptic, Part 7—The Gospel of Mark
In his book, Bauckham explains that although Mark’s Gospel bears his name, Peter is preeminent to the story as a witness, the main reason being that Peter exemplifies the experiences of the disciples as a whole, and exhibits their qualities in extremes. “He is typical of them all in his failure, but surpasses them in the manner of his failure.” Peter is the best choice, because we can all identify with him, not to mention his history with Christ and the apostles. He’s also prominent in all 4 Gospels, not just Mark. And the fact that he allows the story of his own denial to be told—that’s powerful testimony of honesty!
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Jesus and the EyeWitnesses: Study with a Skeptic, Part 3—Papias
Papias, Papias, and more Papias (continuing from our previous study)
Papias was a bishop of Hierapolis, a 3rd generation Christian who compiled oral reports of the life of Jesus. In his book, Bauckham spends a great deal of time on Papias, who naturally assumed that the elders he received his reports from had spoken with the disciples of Jesus directly.
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Book Review: A Farewell to Mars
Brian Zahnd remembers when he, a pastor, threw a huge party for the beginning of the Gulf War—when he, a Christian leader, celebrated the invasion of a country and the use of the sword. Since, he has repented. He even says it was the worst sin he ever committed. A Farewell to Mars is part confession, part instruction, a book about why he left the effective worship of war and chose to worship only God alone.
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CALEB COY 