Homebrewed Theology » Entries tagged with "Faith"
Book Review: Beyond Opinion – Ravi Zacharias
It’s very rare that it takes me an extensive amount of time to get through a book. However, Beyond Opinion from Ravi Zacharias has been one of those books. Beyond Opinion is a collection of apologetics essays, essentially, dealing with subjects ranging from Islam to Evil to engaging Youth to Postmodernism to the Trinity. In other words,it’s a pretty extensive work. Although a number of chapters are written by Zacharias, a number of Zacharias’ colleagues contributed to this book as well. Now, on to the review: The good: The book is fairly easy to read, as it avoids terminology that may be familiar only to third year seminary students. I also enjoyed the variety of topics covered, making this more of a reference manual than an instruction book. The bad: Some of the chapters … Read entire article »
Filed under: Media Reviews, Religion
Big Tent Reflection #2 – Doubt As A Part Of A Vibrant Faith
Being part of and Emergent Cohort, doubt and faith, for me, go together like peanut butter and jelly. I happen to be one of those people who believe that it is downright impossible for humanity to get it all figured out. Being created being, we are less than perfect, and to have it all figured out would imply having perfect knowledge. So, you can see the paradox. Rachel Held Evans, author of “Evolving in Monkey Town” spoke eloquently on reframing faith with doubt. One sentence that stuck out to me was simply this: “We’ve never been taught to doubt well.” True, we haven’t. For the vast majority of us, our faith is predicated on believing what we’re told. Those who asked questions or pointed out inconsistencies were simply labeled as being of “weak faith”. … Read entire article »
Can Faith And Science Be Reconciled?
Richard Cizik, co-founder of the New Evangelical Partnership For The Common Good believes so. In fact, one of the main goals of this new group is “to articulate a new form of engagement that doesn’t demonize science or scientists.” From Alan Leshner at HuffPo: Cizik will speak about faith and scientific understanding at the 2011 AAAS Annual Meeting in mid-February, in a symposium entitled “Evangelicals, Science, and Policy.” Cizik promises to bring new perspective to the topic. “From our vantage point as new evangelicals, we don’t see a conflict between science and religion. Millions of evangelicals have reasoned that ‘scientists are evolutionists, so therefore we’re going to reject what they say about climate change,’” Cizik says. “That viewpoint is born, not of deep faith, but of a particular political … Read entire article »
Filed under: Religion
Civility Project Calls It Quits – Cites Threats, Apathy
Lost in the noise and grandstanding over the tragedy in Tucson is something that I find to be very significant, given the debate over the last few days. Back in 2009, Mark Demoss, an evangelical and prominent Republican from Atlanta, became concerned over the tone and tenor of what was passing for political speech and decided to do something about it. His vision became what was to be known as the “Civility Project”. The concept was simple. To stem the rising tide of violent and inflammatory rhetoric, DeMoss and a friend sent out 585 letters, one to every member of Congress and every state’s Governor asking them to make a simple pledge: I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior. I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with … Read entire article »
Holding On To Grace In The Face Of Tragedy
There was a time when events like this weekend’s attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords would make me angry…angry to the point of near irrationality. For a brief moment in time, I would have tossed aside my conscience, and my faith, and joined in the mob mentality in calling for people’s heads. However, something in the last few years has changed me. My reaction to this weekend’s events is not one borne in anger, but one borne in heartbreak. Heartbreak over living in a society where a young man that numerous people believed to have mental health issues was left to drown in his own paranoia. Heartbreak over a young man so caught up in his delusions that he feels compelled to kill other people over a perceived wrong. Heartbreak over a society where … Read entire article »
Muslims Serve As Human Shields For Coptic Christians
This is simply an amazing story. Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had a been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. “We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea. Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said … Read entire article »
Apophatic Theology: Does Atheism Reject Far Too Little?
In the latest edition of Religion Dispatches, Paul Wallace writes an excellent essay on Atheism and apophatic theology. In it, Wallace claims that atheists reject far too little, instead settling for rejecting a “kind of ridiculous super-object in the sky”, a position that is far too simplistic. In this way, this category of atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc.) are simply the mirror image of the theology they so vociferously refute. In simpler terms, they are the “does not” that compliments the “does too” of theological fundamentalism. This is not, by far, a new idea. Aristotle, in On Interpretation, wrote “Affirmations and their corresponding negations are one in the same knowledge”. Wallace goes beyond affirmation and negation into second-order negation, or inverting the inversion. Why is this important? The third level is the most difficult … Read entire article »
Filed under: Religion
Like Vs. Love
Last night at our Emerging Desert Cohort, one of our members brought up a recent series of blogs by Richard Beck over at Experimental Theology. In the blog series, Beck ponders his thoughts while reading James Alison‘s book “On Being Liked“. In it, he says: …I suggested that liking, rather than loving, might be the higher calling for Christians. That liking might be a better reflection of agape than loving, as least as “loving” is commonly practiced among Christians. So I called for Christians to start liking the world. Now here’s the interesting thing about this suggestion. Namely, it feels too promiscuous, too inclusive. Think about that. What has gone wrong in our expressions of agape when we feel that liking is more gracious, more hospitable, more unconditional … Read entire article »
Filed under: Religion
Unity Or Uniformity?
“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. – John 17:20-21 In John 17, Jesus is seen praying for unity within those who believe in him. Over and over he prays for unity, that all who believe be united as one. Some today look at the over 38,000 Christian denominations and say that we, as the “big C” Church have failed. I disagree. Jesus prayed for unity, not uniformity. Some of my fellow theogeeks may disagree with … Read entire article »
Filed under: Religion
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