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Continue reading →: Loving Enemies Without Enabling Harm“Love your enemies” is one of Jesus’ most challenging teachings, partly because we often misunderstand what love means. Loving an enemy does not mean pretending that everything they do is acceptable, agreeing with them, or refusing to name harm when we see it. Christian love is not sentimental kindness that…
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Continue reading →: Time, Space, and Following Jesus: A Christian Vision of RealityWhat kind of universe makes faith possible? This may seem like an abstract philosophical question, but our understanding of reality shapes how we understand God, human freedom, and what it means to follow Jesus. Christianity has always asked questions about God’s relationship to creation, time, and knowledge. Modern physics does…
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Continue reading →: Who Is Lucifer? The Story Behind the NameEveryone thinks they know who Lucifer is. In popular culture, Lucifer is the devil before his fall from heaven. He was the highest of angels, corrupted by pride and cast out in rebellion against God. He appears in novels, films, television series, heavy metal lyrics, and esoteric traditions. The story…
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Continue reading →: Is Criticizing Netanyahu Antisemitic?Was Nathan antisemitic for confronting King David? Was Elijah antisemitic for denouncing King Ahab? Was John the Baptist antisemitic for rebuking Herod Antipas? Of course not. Calling Israel’s rulers to account is one of the oldest prophetic traditions in Scripture. So why shouldn’t a follower of Jesus, himself a Jew…
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Continue reading →: The Curse of Ham? Refuting Racist Readings of Genesis 9What Is the “Curse of Ham”? For centuries, some Christians claimed that Genesis 9 teaches God placed a curse on Ham, the ancestor of many African peoples, and that this curse justified the enslavement and subjugation of his descendants. This interpretation became one of the principal theological defences of the…
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Continue reading →: Justice, Witness, and the Limits of PoliticsAs a Christian activist, I believe political engagement has an important place. We should seek justice, defend the vulnerable, and speak truth to power. Love of neighbour demands no less. But we should also remember the limits of politics. Laws can restrain evil. They can protect people from harm. They…
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Continue reading →: Job Was Not an Israelite: Why That Matters More Than We ThinkOne aspect of the story of Job which seems under explored to me is the fact he was non-Israelite. Job came from the land of Uz, outside the covenant people, with no mention of Torah, Temple, priesthood, or promised land. Yet God says of him, “There is none like him…
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Continue reading →: Upstream of Theology: Why Christians DisagreeI am increasingly aware that many disagreements between Christians, and between people more generally, begin at a deeper level than theology itself. We often focus on differences in belief and practice, but the roots usually lie further upstream, at the level of epistemology and hermeneutics, knowledge and interpretation. Before we…
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Continue reading →: Not a Time to Despair, but to EndureThis morning I find myself pondering Paul’s second letter to Timothy where it says: “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous,…
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Continue reading →: Why 1 Corinthians 14 Should Not Be Used To Silence Half The ChurchI have been thinking about the way 1 Corinthians 14 is used by some against women who wish to serve in the church. Paul cannot be forbidding all speech by women in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, because earlier in the same letter he assumes that women pray and prophesy in the…
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