Category Archives: Theology

Questions at the heart of the gospel

Posted on April 4, 2015 by salooper57

In the four Gospel accounts of the life and death of Jesus, no one ever used the word “resurrection” to describe Jesus’s return from death, neither the ancient writers nor the people whose words and actions they reported. This surprised … Continue reading →

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Don’t shrink-wrap the truth

Posted on March 28, 2015 by salooper57

I suspect that if any of the “new atheists” were to describe to me the God they don’t believe in, I would congratulate them for not believing and explain that I don’t believe in that God either. The God they … Continue reading →

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Who gets to say what is right and what is wrong?

Posted on March 21, 2015 by salooper57

Who gets to say what is right and what is wrong? Is there such a thing? And if there is, on what basis can anyone claim the moral authority to judge it? Those questions underlie a recent and very public … Continue reading →

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One place even God will not go

Posted on March 7, 2015 by salooper57

In “Burnt Norton,” the first poem in T. S. Eliot’s celebrated Four Quartets, the renowned poet writes, “…human kind cannot bear very much reality.” Eliot seems to have been thinking specifically of the deep-seated reluctance to face the end to … Continue reading →

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Unanswered prayer: a thorn in theology’s side

Posted on January 24, 2015 by salooper57

Every branch of knowledge has its ongoing problems. Philosophy has the free-will problem, economics has the gambler’s fallacy, physics has the problem of why there are three space dimensions but only one time dimension. Sociology, mathematics, astronomy – they all … Continue reading →

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Salvation-lite: Great Benefits…Less Responsibility?

Posted on January 10, 2015 by salooper57

It was once quite common to hear people say, “I was saved in Vacation Bible School,” or “I was saved in a small group Bible study.” What did they mean by that? Saved from what? Saved for what? In what … Continue reading →

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We need the Answerer more than the answers

Posted on January 1, 2015 by salooper57

Our church has been on an emotional roller coaster in the last few weeks. We had three young families, all expecting their first babies within a few days of Christmas. The first of the babies, a beautiful little girl named … Continue reading →

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Away – or rather, the way – in a manger

Posted on December 20, 2014 by salooper57

A man asked God how long a million years was to him. God replied, “It’s just like a single second of your time, my child.” So the man asked, “And what about a million dollars?” The Lord replied, “To me, … Continue reading →

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Good thing Jesus isn’t afraid of dirt

Posted on December 13, 2014 by salooper57

In 2013, a record 2 million people visited Bethlehem. It was estimated that there were 75,000 tourists in the Holy Land for the Christmas holiday, and most of them were expected to celebrate Jesus’s birthday in the city where he … Continue reading →

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Are you infected with “solution aversion”?

Posted on December 6, 2014 by salooper57

Duke University psychologists Troy Campbell and Aaron Kay recently published a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that suggests that a person’s deeply held beliefs may alter the way he or she interprets reality. When Campbell and … Continue reading →

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