Theology

I’m a new father. My 3 month old son is a constant source of entertainment and challenge, and over the weekend I started thinking about the analogy of God as a loving father. There is something about the analogy that doesn’t quite fit when it all is put together. I know that analogies only hold…

Vacation is over, and it is time to get back on the blogging horse again. I trust you have enjoyed my break as much as I have, and now it is time to resume exploring how our orientation towards truth as that which proves Jesus in retrospect is flawed, and offer an alternative view of…

There are many idols prowling around our consciousness’ these days, and an even easier one to spot than belief is the truth. I know this sounds extreme and I will undoubtably get lampooned by some friends on this one, but the truth is not Jesus. But wait, Jesus said that he was the truth (Jn.…

I ended my last post by suggesting that faith is a radical openness to what God is doing. I want to expand and elaborate on this point because it can be taken in any number of unhelpful directions. I want to take it in this one: Radical openness is not conceptual; it is not openness…

“Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything” – St. Gregory of Nyssa The difficulty in distinguishing faith from belief is immense. This is primarily so because of our post-Enlightenment penchant for conceptualization and rationality within the framework those concepts create. Yet for the present I will attempt to distinguish the concepts of faith from the…

I left you all dangling a bit with the end of that post; so much so in fact that my mom emailed me to confirm that I still thought there was a God! Having assured her of that reality, I will offer up another initially offensive proposition: The bible never, not once, tells us that…

I ended my last post by wondering whether or not God cares about what we think of God. That question is important for me as I reflect on the theological training I’ve had and on the experiences my life has given me. It seems that so much unspeakable evil has been done in the service…

The longer I live the more I am amazed at the myriad ways of people finding God, peace, hope, faith. And I am even further amazed at the myriad ways of people losing God, peace, hope, faith. If I’m honest, it all creates a deep sadness that rests in the center of my chest, like…

We all have beliefs. Let me just start out there. Each one of us has something that we consider to be true, and to mark that as true we attach something called a belief as a marker. This is why philosophers consider beliefs to be the markers of what a person or group consider to…