Stanley Hauerwas defines Christianity and talks about the signs of a baptized life and identity:
Blog
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How should we deal with our differences?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about differing opinions on important matters — primarily in terms of religious and theological issues, though there are similar discussions to be had when it comes to matters of politics or philosophy or virtually any area of inquiry. By differing opinions, I simply mean that reasonably intelligent people, when presented with the same general information, can still come to drastically different and mutually incompatible understandings of important issues.
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N.T. Wright on the Gospel (video)
Some recent comments on one of my Mark Driscoll posts brought up “the gospel,” essentially saying that despite any perceived shortcomings, Driscoll is still preaching the gospel and should be lauded for that. In light of that sentiment, here’s a great video of N.T. Wright discussing his views on the gospel — what it is and what it isn’t and how one might go about responsibly presenting it:
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Driscoll on Evolution
In response to my previous post about Mark Driscoll, a commenter on reddit referenced Mark Driscoll’s and Gerry Breshears’ book, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. (Hereafter I’ll simply reference Driscoll as the author).
About that book, another commenter said “In one chapter it plainly stated that the majority of scientists agree that human beings arose about 10,000 years ago.”
Not one to simply accept an anonymous comment on the internet as truth, I decided to see for myself what Driscoll said about evolution in his book. Among many questionable assertions and conclusions, these quotes seemed particularly problematic:
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Which God do you worship?
I recently had a discussion with a friend about whether Muslims worship the same God as Christians. At first glance, one might be tempted to answer “no”: different religions, therefore different Gods. Christians don’t believe in Allah, Muslims don’t believe in Jesus, end of story. But such a snap judgement fails to do justice to theistic belief in general and to the specific beliefs of the major monotheistic faiths.
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Mark Driscoll doesn’t want you to study the Bible
Mark Driscoll recently caused another brouhaha with his views about gender roles. The short version of this latest controversy is that he compared nagging wives to water torture. You can watch the offending segment here.
But are we really surprised by this sort of thing from Driscoll? By now it should seem par for the course: we know where he stands on these issues, we know that he states his positions in less-than-eloquent ways, we know he characterizes the positions of his opponents in less-than-charitable terms and we know that none of this is likely to change.
But in the rush to point out yet another misogynistic statement from Driscoll, a perhaps even more troubling statement from him was overlooked. In the opening of his sermon on Ephesians 5.22−33 and the subject of wives submitting to their husbands, Driscoll says:
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Review: Cross Examined by Bob Seidensticker
Cross Examined: An Unconventional Spiritual Journey by Bob Seidensticker is an easy book to sum up: it’s a novel about apologetics. Such an undertaking has intriguing possibilities, but unfortunately Seidensticker can’t quite pull off this combination. Apologetics is mostly about telling; good fiction is about showing — and in this novel the two make for uneasy bedfellows.
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I See An Elephant
Here’s a picture of the world:
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A Christian Response To Tragedy
Amid the unfolding news of yesterday’s Boston marathon bombing, I saw this message on Facebook:
Really!? This is the sort of question that pops into the mind of some supposed “Christians”? People are dead and injured and scared and traumatized and panicked and you dare to question the sincerity, motivation and consistency of their prayers? And regarding the comment appended to that post, you dare to make a horrendously distasteful joke when there are still bodies and body parts strewn across the street? That’s what you, a self-proclaimed Christian, choose to say while people are still crying out and wondering where to turn for answers? This sort of self-righteous theological arrogance and uncaring smugness makes me embarrassed to be even nominally associated with Christianity.
