Over Christmas I had the chance to watch the 2010 documentary With God On Our Side. This film provides an insightful, provocative and emotional look at Christian Zionism, exploring historical, religious, political and social aspects of the Jewish/Palestinian conflict. The film doesn’t settle for easy answers but instead seeks to uncover the truth behind the rhetoric. It allows Christian Zionists to speak for themselves and explain their reasoning, but also offers a decisive refutation of that misguided position. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to gain a better understanding of the problems in the Middle East from a truly Christian perspective. Below is the trailer:
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Category: Theology
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Review: With God On Our Side
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Follow-Up: Can you be a Christian and still believe … ?
My post Can you be a Christian and still believe … ? caused quite a bit of furor on the interwebs, so I’d like to take a moment to offer a few explanatory notes as well as provide some resources for further exploration of these topics.First, the point of the post wasn’t to provide a litmus test for Christian faith (liberal or otherwise). The moment we use any of these issues to judge someone else’s relationship with God, we’ve stepped into dangerous territory — territory that belongs not to us, but to God alone. What you believe about these things doesn’t include you in or exclude you from the Kingdom of God. (more…)
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Can you be a Christian and still believe … ?
Guess what? You can still be a Christian even if you believe that:- Evolution is true.
- The Bible isn’t inerrant.
- Women have the same rights as men.
- Homosexuality isn’t a sin.
- Owning a gun isn’t a God-given right.
- America isn’t God’s chosen country.
- Republicans aren’t God’s chosen political party.
- The modern state of Israel isn’t God’s chosen people.
- Decisions about abortion should be left up to individual women.
- Non-Christians won’t burn for eternity in hell.
And you just might be a bit closer to the Kingdom of God if you do believe some of those things.
Update #1:
For those of you on Facebook, I’ve created a nice little meme of this post.Update #2:
I’ve provided a list of resources regarding these beliefs in my follow-up post, coincidentally titled: Follow-Up: Can you be a Christian and still believe … ? -
Christmas Conspiracy?
On Christmas Eve I received a padded manila envelope in the mail. It was addressed to me in careful script. The return address listed a PO box in North Carolina and a name I’ve never heard of (if you’re reading this, hello!). In tiny letters on the lower right corner of the envelope was written “JFK”.Despite warnings from my wife about anthrax and letter bombs, I tore it open and discovered a CD‑R inside, labeled “Kennedy 2hrs”. Again throwing caution to the wind, I popped it into my computer and was treated to a montage of video clips documenting the “truth” about the Kennedy assassination.
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Love God with all your…
In a recent article discussing the New Living Translation, Daniel Block argues in favor of dynamic equivalence translation (“thought for thought”) over formal equivalence translation (“word for word”). He claims that Jesus himself favored this translation philosophy, citing the differences between Luke 10.27 and Deuteronomy 6.5 as evidence. Block says: (more…) -
Should Experience Determine Doctrine?
I recently heard a pastor say that “experience shouldn’t determine our doctrine, only the Bible should.” He went on to explain that we might experience all sorts of things that lead us to believe one thing or another, but that the only true, infallible source of doctrine is the Bible and whenever our experience causes us to question Biblical doctrine, we must always defer to Biblical teaching, since it is the Word of God.For those from a conservative/fundamentalist background, such an admonition will not come as a surprise — it’s the standard trope of “The Bible Says It, I Believe It, That Settles It.” But when I heard those words I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why? Because such a hermeneutical framework, while seemingly the safest path towards following the teaching of God, is actually the most dangerous! (more…)
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The Hell-Raiser Letter
I recently wrote a letter to the New Yorker in response to their profile of Rob Bell. It was published in the 17 December, 2012 issue. You can read it on their site here, or below:Kelefa Sanneh’s Profile of the ex-megachurch pastor and ersatz theological liberal Rob Bell provides a fascinating glimpse inside the struggles of American evangelicalism (“The Hell-Raiser,” November 26th). Bell’s “evolving faith” in many ways mirrors my own: I graduated from Wheaton College several years after Bell, and his formative experiences with Christianity and his subsequent efforts to come to terms with the strengths and weaknesses of an evangelical subculture resonate deeply with me, and perhaps with many others of my generation. (more…)
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What The Non-Believing Kids Are Writing
Jeremy Witteveen, the Head Chef over at Le Café Witteveen, offers a few choice words in his post “What the believing kids are writing” in response to my post “I Do Not Permit A Woman.” So, to be equitable, I have a few responses of my own.
Regarding 1 Timothy 2.12, Witteveen says “You know, one of those verses that renders the concept of belief a bit silly, reckless and short-sighted.” How on earth can a single statement in a nineteen hundred year old letter have such drastic epistemological consequences? That verse alone renders the entire “concept of belief” silly? Really? (more…)
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Universal Calvin
One of the main objections to Calvinism is that it casts God as a cruel monster who creates people in order to arbitrarily condemn many of them to hell. While I think that understanding is a distortion of Calvinist theology, it nevertheless contains a grain of truth and poses a seeming problem to the omnibenevolence of God.But is Calvinism necessarily incompatible with an infinitely good God? Not if universalism is true! (more…)
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I Do Not Permit A Woman
In 1 Timothy 2.12 Paul says “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” (NIV2011)
What’s up with that? Is Paul really issuing a definitive command regarding women’s roles that’s binding upon all Christians today? Is this a clear directive that severely limits women’s ministry in the Church? That’s certainly how most complementarians understand this verse. But is that where the discussion ends? Paul said it, I believe it, that settles it? (more…)