Christians in this country (and elsewhere) are deeply divided by different understandings of a shared language. About half (maybe more) of American Christians believe that biblical language is to be u...
But then something went terribly, terribly wrong. Athens had invented a democracy, but learned that you could have a democracy or an empire, but not both at the same time for long. Rome was now about...
As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them; so would I learn to attain free fall and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing n...
As an epiphany of God, Jesus discloses that at the center of everything is a reality that is in love with us and wills our well-being, both as individuals and as individuals within society. As an imag...
All this means that we can add a fourth stroke to our historical portrait of Jesus. He was a first-century Jewish prophet, announcing God’s kingdom, believing that the kingdom was breaking in through...
To do Christian theology within the framework of religious pluralism and the cross-cultural study of religion. Given its Christian focus and audience, it is written primarily for Christians but also f...
Metaphor means to see as. Metaphorical language is a way of seeing. To apply this to the Bible: the Bible not only includes metaphorical language and metaphorical narratives, but may itself be thought...
Thus Jesus is a metaphor of God. Indeed, for us as Christians, he is the metaphor of God. Of course, he was also a real person. As metaphor of God, Jesus discloses what God is like. We see God through...
This vision of life is deeply centered in God, the sacred. So it was for Jesus. So it is in all of the enduring religions of the world. What makes Christianity Christian is centering in God as known i...
This book might also be seen as a Christian primer. A primer teaches us how to read. Reading is not just about learning to recognize and pronounce words, but also about how to hear and understand them...
These two visions of Christianity—one emphasizing the next world and what we must believe and do in order to get there, the other emphasizing God’s passion for the transformation of this world—are ver...
These questions can be used by individual readers and also in reading groups in which participants are invited to share their memories and thoughts. Many of them invite reflection on previous or curre...
The word sacrament also has a broader meaning. In the study of religion, a sacrament is commonly defined as a mediator of the sacred, a vehicle by which God becomes present, a means through which the...
The way of Jesus is thus not a set of beliefs about Jesus. That people ever thought it was is strange, when we think about it — as if one entered new life by believing certain things to be true, or as...
The term evangelist is based on the Greek word for gospel, which means news. As evangelists, the authors of the gospels proclaimed the news about Jesus in and for their time and place. The word news s...
The Roman vision incarnated in the divine Augustus was peace through victory. The Christian vision incarnated in the divine Jesus was peace through justice. It is those alternatives that are at stake...
Rather than God being the lawgiver and judge whose requirements must be met and whose justice must be satisfied, God is the lover who yearns to be in relationship to us. Rather than sin and guilt bein...
Participatory eschatology involves a twofold affirmation: we are to do it with God, and we cannot do it without God. In St. Augustine’s brilliant aphorism, God without us will not; we without God cann...
Many Christians basically accept the modern worldview’s image of reality and then add God onto it. God is the one who created the space-time world of matter and energy as a self-contained system, set...
In this life, a radical centering in God leads to a deepening trust that transforms the way we see and live our lives. Seeing, living, trusting, and centering are all related in complex ways. They are...