Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
“I tried to find a definition for ‘affective theology’ in the dictionary but it wasn’t listed—so where does it come from and what does it mean?” That question was posed to me a number of times when I was a seminary teacher. Students wondered why I used the phrase regularly in my classes while it …
Read More Affective TheologyMy current airplane book is not my normal fare. The Big Short by Michael Lewis is an exposé of the American bond and mortgage industry of the last few years. The language of the book is coarse and some issues are opaque to someone like me who lives outside Manhattan, yet the story is compelling. …
Read More Morality & the MindI’m told that the best way to have a useful conversation with those who hold different convictions is to step into their shoes—to view the world as they do. So it’s time for me to try on a Stoic view of faith. Here are some insights I’ve taken from the exercise. But first I need …
Read More Three Advantages of StoicismLet me ask a question: do we think and learn by collecting and affirming every idea we’ve ever heard, so that all we’ve heard grows into a single collection of “truth”? Or do we try to sort out the things that are true from the things that aren’t true? If for instance, someone tells us, …
Read More A Clear View of ChristThis entry is more technical, more historical, and longer than usual: be warned and be patient, please. I also think it’s important. As my elementary teacher used to say, “Put on your thinking caps!” After recently stepping away from my years as a theology educator I’m starting to see some academic blind spots we tend to …
Read More Getting God RightI was in trouble with my high school English teacher. It was in my sophomore year—not long before I met Christ at summer camp—that she called me aside. “Where did this writing come from? You’ve plagiarized this project, haven’t you!” I was stunned. The project was a simple composition that I had taken very seriously, …
Read More Treasuring TimeAllen Bloom wrote The Closing of the American Mind in the 1980’s as a criticism of the growing relativism in the modern academy and in society at large. That relativism has two axioms: first that everyone should be free to hold their own opinion without having others criticize them; and, second, that every viewpoint is …
Read More The Closing of the Human HeartLet me return here to a guiding theme of the Spreading Goodness site: the role of the heart in directing all our conduct. I revisit it in part because it invites ongoing reflection and also because for many Christians the primacy of the heart in the soul seems at the same time obvious and improbable: …
Read More Chalmers’ SermonGlory in the Bible is a many splendored term. It speaks of God’s tangible brilliance; of his timeless praise and honor; of our future hope as those who know and love the Son; and much, much more. Most of all glory explains our purpose in life. Glory invited a pause for reflection today after I …
Read More Thoughts on GloryHelmut Thielicke (1908-86), a German pastor and educator who remained faithful even under Hitler’s regime in WWII, wrote that the real competition in theology is not between modernists (or “liberals”) and conservatives but consists in a more basic—and unnoticed—conflict between Cartesians and non-Cartesians. As I’ll share below, I agree with him, but first let me …
Read More A Corollary to Thielicke’s Axiom