Theology

Paul, Paradox, Myth, and the Danger of Knowledge

Paul, Paradox, Myth, and the Danger of Knowledge

“Paul, you are out of your mind! Your great learning is driving you mad!” So exclaimed the governor Festus on hearing Saint Paul speak. Until recently, this statement made sense to me. Studying too …

Teleology & Simulation

Teleology & Simulation

(—This essay is a draft, undergoing feedback and revision.—) In 1802, William Paley famously set out the “Watchmaker Analogy”, a teleological argument, or argument from design for the existence of God…

The Resurrection is Participatory

The Resurrection is Participatory

In my previous essay, The Resurrection is Technological, I explored Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15, that the resurrection is about God’s intention for humanity to reign over the cosmos. According…

Miracles vs Magic

Miracles vs Magic

In 1600, during Giordano Bruno’s heresy trial, the inquisitors asked a question: Did he believe Jesus’ miracles were performed by magic? It’s hard for us to understand the significance of this questio…

Be Thou My Vision, the Royal Wedding & Theosis

Be Thou My Vision, the Royal Wedding & Theosis

At the Royal Wedding yesterday, there was a brief moment when everyone in attendance, including the royal couple, sang together. They were singing a melody shared by Be Thou My Vision, one of the most…

The Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel

Perhaps no biblical story has captivated people’s imaginations like the Tower of Babel. In this story, a group of people get together to build a tower tall enough to reach heaven—from which they inten…

Minimum Viable Theology: Superorganisms

Minimum Viable Theology: Superorganisms

This is part of a series on a Minimum Viable Theology. The idea is to see if we can construct a minimal theological starter kit, using only reasonable assumptions. The first entry is about why good wi…

5 Theses for the Next Reformation

5 Theses for the Next Reformation

500 years ago TODAY, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of a German church, kick-starting the Protestant Reformation, and changing the course of history. 500 years later, the religious world i…

Christian Transhumanism is the Next Reformation

Christian Transhumanism is the Next Reformation

Published at the Huffington Post Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of a German church, kicking off one of the most significant movements in Christian history: the Prot…

How does Salvation Work?

How does Salvation Work?

Here’s how salvation works in Christianity. In Christianity, love is what saves. When Jesus is asked how to inherit eternal life, the answer is the the greatest commands: “Love the Lord your God with…

The Purpose of Scripture & Doctrine

The Purpose of Scripture & Doctrine

I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about scripture and doctrine. And yet, as I’ve expressed in many different ways, I believe that love is the answer—the truly significant factor. So why not j…

Moana and Reading Scripture

Moana and Reading Scripture

I love the movie Moana. And, particularly, I love this song—both because it’s a great song, and because it perfectly encapsulates a deep truth about reading scripture, or any kind of story. (Listen to…

The Serpent’s Lie

The Serpent’s Lie

I’ve heard it over and over again, when people are considering some new capabilities or technological power: “This is just a repeat of the Serpent’s lie, You shall be like God!” The reference is to …

How to handle God’s audacious vision for humanity

How to handle God’s audacious vision for humanity

I’ve recently been rediscovering how truly audacious the biblical vision for humanity is. According to even a cursory reading of the scriptures, humanity is made in the image of God, given charge of t…

Why Christians need a Minimum Viable Theology

Why Christians need a Minimum Viable Theology

I am a Christian, and part of what that means is that I am an heir of an incredibly dense and comprehensive cultural tradition. I would call it a maximal cultural tradition, as it has produced art, mu…

Christianity is Love

Christianity is Love

Christianity is the assertion that love is the most powerful force in the universe. Of course, when we talk about love, all kinds of ideas come to mind, from romance to hippies to powerful feelings ab…

Partnership with God

Partnership with God

This Fall I taught a Bible class at my local church, along with Kyle Creamer, Nate Underwood, Emily Stutzman Jones (Lipscomb’s Director of Sustainability), Rob Touchstone (founder of the Well Coffeeho…

Unclean Christianity

Unclean Christianity

In the ancient world, leprosy was incredibly unclean—if you had it, you were not simply unhealthy, you were cast out of society. For you to touch anyone was to risk contaminating them. You had to live…

All Are Alive

All Are Alive

I have often thought about the way we define ‘death’. When is someone actually dead? At one point in time, we defined death as the point when someone’s heart stopped beating. Now, we define death as t…

Minimum Viable Theology: We Are Not Alone

Minimum Viable Theology: We Are Not Alone

This is part of a series on a Minimum Viable Theology. The idea is to see if we can construct a minimal theological starter kit, using only reasonable assumptions. The first entry is about why good wi…

The Creative Process of God

The Creative Process of God

For quite a while now, I’ve been suffering through something I might call abstraction angst. It’s hard to describe to those who haven’t experienced it, but you might get a little of the flavor if you …

Women in the Church

Women in the Church

If you, like me, grew up in a “Bible-believing church”, one thing that might have been discussed is the question of what role women could play in church services. You might have been told, for example…

The Infinite Resurrection

The Infinite Resurrection

A few months ago, I gave a talk entitled “The Infinite Resurrection” at the annual conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. The MTA are always great hosts, and I enjoyed the opportunity to …

The Dark Side of Knowledge

The Dark Side of Knowledge

The other day, I explored the story of Genesis, and its perplexing account of the corruption of mankind through the knowledge of good and evil. I tried to unpack some of the overlooked dynamics of the…

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Curiously, Genesis attributes the downfall of humanity to something identified only as The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This mysterious tree is the one thing in all of creation forbidden to…

The Structure of the Biblical Story

The Structure of the Biblical Story

The biblical story is rich and complex—and full of metaphor, symbolism, and beauty. But given its length and complexity, it’s easy to throw up our hands at the prospect of understanding it all. This c…

All Things Work Together For Good

All Things Work Together For Good

There’s a verse in Romans that says something like this: “All things work together for good”. I had a teacher who didn’t like that verse. He thought it was saying that all things are already good—we j…

Minimum Viable Theology: Good Wins

Minimum Viable Theology: Good Wins

If you’ve spent any time in the tech world, you’re probably familiar with the term “Minimum Viable Product”. The idea is that when you’re building something, it’s better to start with the most basic v…

The Faith of the Martian

The Faith of the Martian

My first article for The Huffington Post went up this week: The Faith of the Martian I have a bad habit of starting essays about movies, and not finishing them until months later — and that’s the case…

The Infinite Morality of Jesus

The Infinite Morality of Jesus

In his book, The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch argues that there are moments when something switches from being of only limited and local use, to having infinite reach. If you’ve ever played ar…

The Church of Christ

The Church of Christ

Some of you may know that I was raised in the Churches of Christ, a small religious group that emerged from the American Restoration Movement of the early 1800s. At the time of the Restoration Movemen…

Three ways of seeing the world

Three ways of seeing the world

It seems to me that there are three main ways you can look at the world. The first is monism, and it holds that everything is one. God and the world and heaven and earth and you and me are all one blu…

The hardest thing to believe

The hardest thing to believe

The hardest thing to believe in the New Testament isn’t that a guy rose from the dead. For the disciples, the hardest thing to believe was that they were going to come to possess the Roman Empire, and…

Christianity is a set of memes

Christianity is a set of memes

I’m a Christian. That means that I think that a certain set of memes — memes which started in first-century Israel, and very quickly spread out into the rest of the world — are very significant. As ti…

The Comprehensiveness of Orthodoxy

The Comprehensiveness of Orthodoxy

Many people who use the word “orthodoxy” as a weapon, think of it as an insistence on picking the one correct answer out of many possible. I think this misses the point pretty badly. Orthodoxy isn’t t…

The Theology of the Lego Movie

The Theology of the Lego Movie

A few months ago I went to see the Lego Movie with my friends. It provoked a lot of thoughts. I started thinking about how we approach the raw materials of the world around us, how we think about crea…

Embodiment

Embodiment

Lately, a lot of people have been talking about embodiment. From theologians and philosophers, to environmentalists and activists, there is a lot of concern with how we think of ourselves, and our rel…

Leaving the Church

Leaving the Church

Two of the most significant articles I’ve read recently address the question of why millennials are leaving the church. First, there was this piece by Rachel Evans: Why millennials are leaving the chu…

The State of Christianity and the World

The State of Christianity and the World

There is a lot of negativity these days about the state of the world. There’s always been a lot of negativity, so I guess that’s not surprising. What is surprising is how this negativity persists desp…

A Better Apocalypse

A Better Apocalypse

On May 21, 2011, I was sitting in a steel-roofed building as a powerful storm pounded down outside. This is the day that Harold Camping had said the world would end. After decades of bible study, he h…

The Human Race & The Problem of Evil

The Human Race & The Problem of Evil

The Problem of Evil is the apparent contradiction between the idea that God is infinitely loving, and the fact that he created us in a world with such intense suffering. It’s a serious problem for Chr…

The Problem of Evil is the Problem of Humanity

The Problem of Evil contrasts three ideas: Evil, suffering, and pain exist. We believe that God is all powerful. We believe that God is completely benevolent. For our purposes, let’s define “all pow…

Christmas

Christmas

As Christmas has approached, I’ve been reminded that traditional Christmas songs have embodied some of the most hopeful messages for humanity ever written. This makes sense — their subject matter draw…

Why I am a theist

I am a theist. For most people, that probably collapses into the fact that I’m a Christian. But they are separate things, and I embrace each of them for different reasons. I embrace Christianity becau…

Beyond Fulfilled Eschatology

A few years ago I began to realize that the New Testament authors anticipated the second coming within their own lifetimes. This led me to a lot of study and research, and ultimately to the reluctant …

Things I've been meaning to write about

Life is a series of pains. We don’t get to choose a pain-free life, but over time, we do get to choose to live with more interesting pains, like the pain of problem-solving, or creation, or love. This…

The Cruel God of the Hebrew Bible

The Cruel God of the Hebrew Bible

This is a response to Hank Pellissier’s essay on the cruelty of God. My friend Lincoln has already written a response about theism in general, but I wanted to say something about the portrayal of the …

Maybe I was wrong

For several years now, I’ve argued that everything in the bible was completely fulfilled and finished almost two thousand years ago. I think I might have been wrong. My reason for the conclusion was r…

The Image of God

The Image of God

In 1000 BC, in a world of slaves and warlords, where life was often nasty, brutish, and short, it would have been hard to imagine that humanity could ever be anything else. There was no evidence, no i…

His enemies beneath his feet...

For a while, I’ve been trying to puzzle out the chronology of 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, and finding it incredibly difficult. But here’s a little bit of what I’ve noticed. Hebrews 2:5-9 talks about every…

Sin, Covet, Judge

It is very common to hear Christians define “sin” as “missing the mark”. Sin then becomes a word for any kind of imperfection or flaw, for basic human fallibility itself. And it becomes very easy to s…

God can be trusted

God can be trusted

Once I heard someone declare that God was like an umbrella, always standing between you and all the trouble raining down. My first thought was, then he’s a pretty crappy umbrella. What’s the use of fe…

Jesus the Insurgent

Jesus the Insurgent

This is the fourth in a series of essays on Christianity as Anthropology. Read the previous entries here. By the first century the entire world was under the power of the Roman Empire, the full embodi…

The Works of The Devil

The Works of The Devil

For the past two weeks, I’ve been exploring the nature and rise of human evil. We’re about to move into the New Testament, but before we do, I want to make sure I’m super clear as to the problems that…

Ancient Israel vs The Blood Gods

Ancient Israel vs The Blood Gods

This is the second post in a series on Christianity as Anthropology. In this, I’m sketching out in quick narrative form a synthesis of many different ideas. See my references here. My previous post de…

References for Christianity as Anthropology

Most of my currently forming understanding of Christianity sees it as a confrontation with the political, systemic, and psychological forces that shaped humanity from the beginning. My understanding i…

Why are humans Evil?

Why are humans Evil?

Some comments on a recent post brought up the question of why humans are moral. Is it because there is a God, or did we just evolve to act this way? Intriguing as that question is, I’m more interested…

Death and The Knowledge of Good and Evil

Let’s talk about Adam and Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Many people believe this story is about the first humans becoming mortal. God had warned Adam and Eve that in taking the k…

Arguing about the Bible

Arguing about the Bible

I grew up arguing about the bible. Son of a preacher-man, raised in one of the most biblically-obsessed religious groups in America, I like to think that I know how to argue it well. But the toughest …

Good and Evil, Paradox and Contradiction

Good and Evil, Paradox and Contradiction

Sorry things are a little slow lately. I’ve been working on some big thoughts, trying to fit them together and make them dance. But in the meantime, let me share a few thoughts about good and evil. Th…

The Existence of God?

I’m writing this for my atheist friends who see no reason or justification for believing in God - not to convince them, but to give them a window into my own thought processes, and an alternative to m…

Deus Ex Machina

Deus Ex Machina

In Insurrection, Peter Rollins critiques the Deus Ex Machina. This is the god that, in ancient Greek plays, was lowered on a rope into the middle of the stage, in order to resolve the story. It’s a te…

I am more fundamentalist than you

I am more fundamentalist than you

At the beginning of the 20th century, prominent religious leaders got together and formed a list of five fundamentals - the items of belief that they thought were non-negotiable elements of Christian …

Why I hate religion, but love Jesus

This video has been making the rounds, stirring up a lot of attention and commentary, and causing at least a few people to drop the f-word into some Christian discussion lists. Go and watch it now, an…

Peter Rollins and Experiencing God

Peter Rollins and Experiencing God

In Insurrection, Peter Rollins critiques the way in which various religious movements attempt to experience God. One approach is the one taken by Chick Tracts, where God is a being so external to the …

will christianity die without church?

One response I’ve often gotten to my beliefs is the assertion that without churches and institutions, Christianity would cease to be passed on to future generations, and cease to spread through societ…

a broken world

It’s very common to hear religious people talk about living in a “broken world”. I may have even heard someone use that as an excuse a time or two. Certainly there are bad things in the world. People …

Peter Rollins and the Death of Religion

Peter Rollins and the Death of Religion

I’m currently reading Peter Rollins’ brilliant and incisive book “Insurrection”. One of the primary ideas is that on the cross, Jesus lost everything including God himself, and that this experience of…

christianity is hard

I think Christianity is hard. That’s kind of a rough thing to say, and instantly brings up all kinds of objections. But it seems to be fairly clear in the gospels that Jesus doesn’t expect people to b…

Christianity is a platform

Christianity is a platform

Christianity is a platform, and platforms are measured by their generativity. For a long time, Christianity has been seen as a sort of closed box, a looped off container holding certain ideas together…

Thoughts on Science and Religion

The relationship between science and religion has been discussed and debated for a long time now, with very little apparent progress in many quarters. I love science. I admire the genius of the scient…

Believe or Don't Believe

Belief in God amounts to a perception that the universe is bending towards good. Good is winning out, complexity is increasing, beauty is spreading. If you accept that, then the lines of our future ar…

speak

The first chapter of the gospel of John famously connects Jesus to the Word. I’ve always understood that to refer to the spoken word of God, the same word that said “Let there be light”, and spoke the…

Religion is justice

Most people frame religion as primarily an ethical phenomenon, concerned with how people behave and conduct society. I think that’s incorrect. It fails to account for prevailing interest in deities an…

Language

I used to think that maybe we could find new words, and re-express Christianity in different language. Right now, I think that idea is probably futile. Christianity without the language of fall, redem…

Jesus identifies

There’s a lot of confusion about the meaning of Jesus’ death. I don’t mean that the average person doesn’t get what the theologians are telling them - I mean that the upshot of most of the discussion …

Ancient Israelite Violence and The Morality of Roadkill

This morning I started thinking about a Jewish law which prohibits prostitutes from putting money into the temple treasury. I’ve always had a problem with this idea - after all, why should you avoid d…

In the first century

It is the middle of the 1st century, near downtown Corinth, just after dark on a Saturday evening. People are strolling towards the Miller’s house. The Millers are a lower-level wealthy family, so the…

Two thoughts I posted to Twitter

These are two things I wrote on Twitter earlier today. Thought I would archive them here as well. I’m a conservative in this respect: I think the scriptures give us an inside look at a moment in histo…

The New Testament Message

There are many things I do not understand about the New Testament, and the mentality behind what the New Testament authors wrote. But I think I understand this. In Jesus, God was declaring the sins of…

How Christianity Sold its Soul

In 325 AD, Christianity sold its soul to Constantine and the Roman Empire. The most peaceful movement in world history beat their plows into swords, and their pruning hooks into knives. And so began t…

The Structure of Human Hope: personal eschatology

As I’ve hinted in my previous posts (1, 2), I think God means that there is progress and growth for infinity, that our efforts and actions reverberate down through eternity, and that there are always …

The Structure of Human Hope: in the first century

In my previous post, I outlined what I think reality must be like in order for human hope to persist. Now I want to examine how that looked in the first century. The New Testament scriptures begin wit…

Jesus' triumph and coronation

Biblically speaking, Jesus’ triumph, his victory over the forces mounted against him, and the completion of his own internal struggle, was on the cross. Dying, he conquered. His crucifixion was his ex…

Conversations with God?

Awhile ago, I watched a movie about the author of “Conversations with God”. The author and main character, Neal Donald Walsh, claims to have heard from God over an extended period of time. In these co…

The meaning of the word "God"

I want to make it clear that when I talk about “God”, I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. I mean, I don’t want to overstate things here. I don’t want you to hear something I’m not saying. “In…

The Many & Great Commissions

People throughout the scriptures receive a call - a mission that infuses their life with purpose, and compels them through danger, sacrifice, and doubt to reach the ends to which they have been driven…

Dealing with intense disagreement about beliefs

There are a variety of views on homosexuality, and that’s the truth. To be rough and general, three of these perspectives are: 1) Being gay is an abomination2) I don't necessarily think that homosexua…

Kings and Heroes

There is a lot of confusion about what exactly Jesus teaches us to be. Many people on TV would suggest that Jesus came to teach us how to be happy. There is a lot of validity to that thought, but some…

Science Fiction and Jesus

Science fiction has been defined as story in which the environment is a character. I just watched Avatar the other day, and it fits the definition both technically, and in a deeper sense. The movie A…

Jesus Movement

In the first century, Jesus of Nazareth walked into history and left an impact that reverberated throughout the world. No one before had left such a mark. In the wake of his short, amazing life, an su…

Forgiveness thought

Think about this.Jesus went around forgiving people, and claiming the authority to forgive sins. Further, he freely offered this forgiveness, without requiring anything of the people who sought him.Bu…

Reading the Bible literally?

I’m not going to use this post to critique literal readings of the Bible. Instead, I want to paraphrase The Princess Bride, and point out: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”.A lon…

Apocalypse: Been There, Done That

I’ve just finished writing up an article about why I believe the Second Coming has already happened. It’s relatively short, far from comprehensive, and is only an attempt to look at the basics. Essent…

Interpreting The Bible: A Start

If our task is discover the story which makes sense of all the Bible’s complexity, we need an idea of where to start. The Bible is complex, and understanding the big picture is hard. And as a result, …

Interpreting The Bible: The Basics

Logic There is only one domain of human knowledge that trades in absolute certainty, and that is Propositional Logic. For that very reason, a lot of our traditions have approached the Bible as if it …

A Christian Band? - embedding Christianity in life

This is from my personal adventure blog. It deals with an alternate approach to how Christianity plays in public today. I call that approach embedded Christianity.This weekend I was asked for the tho…

A Christian Band?

This weekend I was asked for the thousandth time if my band is a “Christian band”. It’s a tricky question - with many ramifications on either side. If I say, “Yes, we are a Christian band”, then I pig…

Music

When I was growing up, the church I was part of was offended by Christian music. According to the argument, worship only occurred in the church, without the use of instruments. Therefore, any music th…

Apocalypse: Been There, Done That

Ever since I started thinking about the second coming of Jesus, this dumb title has been stuck in my head. So I’m running with it. I believe that the Apocalypse, Armageddon, the Second Coming of Jesus…

There Is No Hell (part 6), Conclusion

CONCLUSION That’s my viewpoint. I’ve established that Hades and Sheol and Tartarus were places for the dead to wait for judgment. I’ve established that Hades is only temporary, and so the Rich man’s t…

There Is No Hell (part 5), The Use of Language

THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE The lens through which I would naturally view the bible, and the lens through which the original audience viewed the bible, are very different. We have statements like “Melch…

There Is No Hell (part 1)

There is no hell. Period. The bible never once mentions it. It’s simply not there. Instead, we have clear indications of what DOES exist, and it’s not at all like hell. Now, by “hell”, I mean the idea…

I'm Not There: Bob Dylan and The Spirit

I first watched I’m Not There at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville. It’s a film based on the many lives of Bob Dylan, who is played by six different characters, including Kate Blanchett. It’s not your…

God Does Not Belong to Anyone

God does not belong to anyone.The merchants of God try to sell him, putting "half price!" and "deep discount!" stickers on him, wrapping ribbons and bows around his little box.But he is not theirs to …

Proof vs. The Bible

I like proofs.I find beauty in elegant mathematical facts, strung together to establish surprising truths with rock-hard precision.But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve reluctantly realized that bible study …

Two Views of Jesus

I read an article the other day which was intent on drawing the battle lines across our culture.It stated that there were two views of Jesus in common circulation: the view that Jesus is God, and the …

Good is Not Negative

In response to my post on The Problem of Evil, some atheists over at Way of The Mind have been discussing the issue. The relevant argument they’ve been making is that my reasoning means that there are…

What is Identity?

"Bob isn't the man he used to be.""You aren't the same person I fell inlove with.""What happened to that little girl I used to hold on my knee?"Every day, we become a different person than we were the…

(A Few) More Thoughts on The Problem of Evil

It’s been a few days since I published my answer to The Problem of Evil, and I’ve gotten some interesting responses. I didn’t realize when I set out to write it how much it would affect me. Thanks to …

The Problem of Evil, part 1 - The Unanswered Question

Continuing the thoughts processes brought to the forefront by my recent read of "The Physics of Christianity", I would like to look at how to solve the Problem of Evil with modern physics.The Problem …

The Awe of an Atheist

Pedro, over at Way of The Mind (an atheist blog) gave a very insightful post about “awe”. His perspective is that religion could have seized upon the advance of science to display an even more immense…

Did Jesus Create the World? Or did God?

In John 1, we are told, God tells how he used Jesus to create the world. But, why does Genesis not mention this? That is what I always wondered, until just recently. You see, John 1 doesn’t actually s…

The Open Future - Creators with God

People talk about God having a plan for your life. I think differently. If God planned everyone’s life in advance, why should we bother to live it? Even more, if God planned everyone’s life in advance…

The Simplicity of Revelation and Eschatology

Revelation is a very complex book. Most of it is written in symbols only familiar to those steeped in the Jewish religion. And the number of bizarre interpretations of it available make the book very …

Baptism and Eschatology and 70 AD

In 1Corinthians 10, Paul compared the post-Exodus Israelites to the first century Christians. His point was to warn of the danger of falling away, and to warn that falling away was a present reality, …

Do We Need Hierarchies?

A guy named Sig talks about why we don’t need hierarchies in companies, and a friend of his challenged him with a few objections…* Hierarchies are the natural, programmed organizational model hard-wi…

The Law of Christ, The Love of God

The New Testament says, “the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ…” When Jesus came, the law was no longer needed. It was fulfilled. Many Christians today believe that Christianity is a set of…