Why would God approve of animal sacrifice? If He’s so compassionate as to notice even the smallest sparrow fall, why does He sanction the wholesale slaughter of innocent cows, sheep, and goats?
What if the church were not weaponized to pick up stones, we were not quick to condemn, and the Bible were not used to justify judging others but to transform people’s lives? Without condemnation, people would sense the presence of Jesus.
God loves everybody and seeks the highest good for all, yet He also warns of serious consequences for failing to live up to our responsibilities. I can understand consequences, but why must there be an eternal lake of “fire and sulfur” at history’s end?
When I was young and working in my family’s vegetarian restaurant, I often had opportunity to sit and have meaningful conversations with customers during my lunch break.
Bringing fears of anarchy, violence, and eroded morality, the pandemic that is changing our world is transfixing us with an anticipated sense of apocalypse or other form of lurking woe.
Conservatives tend to visualize God as well suited to meet their goal of social order, while progressives see God as better suited to meet their goal of social tolerance. In a sense, therefore, we all shape God in our own image and apply our perception of His authority to ourselves, which sets us up to experience God in specific ways.
I have encountered many authoritative Christians who seek to control people and situations by strictly adhering to rules, demanding the “right” answers, and correcting those who…
Grand words such as “righteousness” and “justification” can sound old-fashioned and judicially governed. Should we be surprised that people today need a simpler explanation and desire integrity and justice as social virtues?
Without a doubt, John 3:16 is the most quoted and well-known verse in the Bible. It’s been repeated by Christians, posted on billboards, printed on banners over highways, displayed at sporting events, and recited at evangelistic crusades. Yet, despite its fame, this verse deserves a second look.
For centuries, Protestants have championed Martin Luther’s legacy of justification by grace through faith, not works. Habakkuk is the prophetic context from which Paul speaks in Romans of the right-making initiative that comes from God, yet it is often proclaimed from weekly pulpits in unbalanced ways that fail to connect to God’s work of justifying and righting all creation.
Theological InTents 