Sermon outline for this coming Sunday: A House That Stands, Luke 6:12-49 INTRODUCTION The Pharisees sought to renew Israel by applying principles of holiness and separation in every detail of life, such as table manners and how you spent your time on the Sabbath. Jesus agreed that Torah had to be . . . . Continue Reading »
Here’s the same problem elsewhere in Barth (again relying on Hunsinger’s treatment): This encounter with God, he argued, was mediated, not immediate, and was given by grace, not by nature. The encounter was objectively mediated by Jesus Christ, and given only by the free decision of . . . . Continue Reading »
George Hunsinger describes one of the implications of Barth’s “actualism” in this way: Negatively [actualism] means that we human beings have no ahistorical relationship to God, and that we also have no capacity in and of ourselves to enter into fellowship with God. An ahistorical . . . . Continue Reading »
Joel Garver of LaSalle provided me with the following quotation from Jorge Luis Borges, a quotation that Joel read in a series of lectures on postmodernism this summer: Borges refers to “a ‘certain Chinese encylopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: . . . . Continue Reading »
I work on the assumption that all the attributes of God are Trinitarian, relational attributes. How does this work with an attribute like “holiness,” which, by most definitions, describes God as wholly un-related? The key is to notice that the language of holiness in Scripture describes . . . . Continue Reading »
Why does biology start with the cell and work upwards? Why explain biological phenomena in terms of cell activity, rather than cell activity in terms of the activity of larger systems? No doubt there is experimental evidence to support this approach, but I find it prima facie doubtful. In many . . . . Continue Reading »
“Do good and lend, without hoping for anything in return.” That is the heart of Christian ethics, according to some, and the kind of gift that Derrida considers impossible. But is this sentence, by itself, the heart of Christian ethics? If so, Christian ethics is inherently . . . . Continue Reading »
The transition from Luke 6:11 to Luke 6:12ff is highly significant. We know it’s significant because it is preceded by a night of prayer, as are many of the milestones in Jesus’ ministry. What is at stake in the choosing of the Twelve? Jesus has come preaching the kingdom, and the year . . . . Continue Reading »
David Brooks has a typically delightful and instructive piece in the current issue of Atlantic . He points out that over four decades, 49 members of Congress have run for President, and of those exactly 49 have been beaten. The main reason, he says, is that Congressmen live in a political form of . . . . Continue Reading »
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