Paul is our guy, and we Protestants continue to expect from him clear direction about what to believe and what to do. And Paul certainly seems to oblige. He has that alluring black-and-white, decisive...
Paradoxically, the challenges of our day-to-day existence are sustained reminders that our life of faith simply must have its center somewhere other than in our ability to hold it together in our mind...
Our level of insight does not determine our level of trust. In fact, seeking insight rather than trust can get in the way of our walk with God.
It is now increasingly agreed that the Old Testament in its final form is a product of and response to the Babylonian Exile. This premise needs to be stated more precisely. The Torah (Pentateuch) was...
In the entertaining story in 1 Kings 18: 20–40, the prophet Elijah* teases and mocks the priests of the Canaanite god Baal when their god does not show up for a divine duel with Yahweh. At one point E...
I was also facing a simultaneous and very serious stressor at work . . . In this section I recall briefly my departure from Westminster Theological Seminary in 2008. The focus of the controversy was t...
I ponder these questions by taking seriously this ancient, ambiguous, and diverse Bible we have as well as honoring my humanity—my experiences, my reasoning, when and where I was born—and I try to get...
I like a prayer book and liturgy to guide me in my faith rather than falling back into my comfort zone of controlling reality with my learned and carefully chosen words, and without leaving it up to m...
I hear Aslan’s words to Shasta: ‘Child,’ said the Lion, ‘I am telling you your story. . . . I tell no one any story but his own.
Following Jesus isn’t like a burden we carry on our shoulders. It’s an internal process so radical and painful that the best way to describe it for people of that day is as the act of being bound and...
Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind, when in fact we are only leaving behind ideas about God that we are used to surrounding ourselves with—the small God...
Doubt strips away distraction so we can see more clearly the inadequacies of whom we think God is and move us from the foolishness of thinking that our god is the God.
Doubt can certainly leave us empty and frightened, but that is precisely the benefit of doubt: it exposes the folly that strong faith means you need to know what you believe, that the more faith you h...
Christ is the ultimate example of how God enters the messiness of history to save his people.
As quite distinct from Jewish interpretation, the history of modern evangelical interpretation exhibits a strong degree of discomfort with the tensions and ambiguities of Scripture.
And as I write this, Romans 13:1 recently made the rounds on the American political scene to shield the administration from criticism for separating illegal immigrants from their children at the borde...
And all this talk of dying and being crucified and hidden doesn’t describe a one-time moment of conversion when we become Christians, as if that’s final. If things were only that easy—a one-time trans...
A story like the exodus story is what happens when, as I said previously, God lets his children tell the story—in ways they understand and that is packed with meaning for them.
A faith that eats its own not only drives people out but also sends up a red flare to the rest of humanity that Christianity is just another exclusive members-only club, and that Jesus is a lingering...
A Bible that does things like this is not a disappointing problem that has to be explained away or made excuses for, but something to be embraced with thanksgiving as a divine gift of love, as we, in...