A Fresh Perspective

Keep in mind that stories and particularly the parables of Jesus may mean different things, have different emphases in different contexts. It’s certainly possible that a story in the original life-setting of Jesus meant one thing, and then in the life-setting of the church years later meant something else. And no doubt these stories were modified and altered as they were orally passed down several decades before taking a particular written form. This is why New Testament scholars remind us that it is very, very difficult to speak with any certainty about the original form of a story, because the story has been modified through the many retellings of the story. It is helpful, I think, to consider this story about the father and his two sons (which is very different than Luke’s story about a father and two sons) in light of its placement in Matthew’s Gospel. Just prior to this story Jesus has engaged in three prophetic acts – he led a peaceful procession into Jerusalem on a donkey, ...

Vickie Beeching , the widely acclaimed Christian songwriter and performer who recently came out as gay, is a superb example of how LGBT Christians can help the church be the church. The path forward, however, will not be without setbacks, obstacles, and many twists and turns.  Brian McLaren recently attended a forum on global human rights for LGBT persons where he recommended finding ways to help religious leaders move incrementally along a spectrum with four spaces: Zone 1: Promote violence against and stigmatization of gay people in the name of God and religion.   Zone 2: Oppose violence but uphold stigmatization of gay people in the name of God and religion.   Zone 3: Oppose violence and seek to reduce stigmatization of gay people in the name of God and religion.   Zone 4: Oppose violence and replace stigmatization with equality in the name of God and religion. Blogger Fred Clark (Slacktivist) has noted that these zones do not reflect “a good...

The stories Jesus told enabled him to both conceal and reveal truth. There were people in the high ranks of the Jewish religious establishment who were completely closed to Jesus’ teaching – they were set on getting rid of Jesus at the first opportunity. The stories Jesus told had a way of conveying truth in a kind of veiled way. On the other hand, there was perhaps no better way of trying to get through to people who had their defenses up. One of things that often blocks spiritual teaching – one reason we do not receive spiritual teaching very well - is because of our assumption that we already know. And this is why direct teaching that counters what we think we know hardly ever gets through, because we react in anger and defensiveness. It may be teaching that we need to hear, but we can’t hear it because we think we already know, and the first thing we want to do is prove the other person wrong. So Jesus tells stories. We are naturally drawn into a story. And the stories Jes...

When I think about ISIS and what our response as a nation should be to their reign of terror my soul is in anguish. Why the anguish? Does ISIS not completely devalue human life and are they not committed to the utter destruction and mass enslavement of all people who refuse to surrender allegiance to them? Does this not warrant the use of military action to stop them? The reason I am in anguish is because I take seriously the nonviolent life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth whom I strive to follow. In the temptation narrative Jesus renounces the option of wielding power as a means of accomplishing God’s will. In his conflict with the religious and political powers of his day, Jesus chooses the way of suffering every time instead of the way of violence. At the time of his arrest he tells his disciples, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). Jesus dies powerless and mocked, absorbing the animosity of his tormen...

Dove Award-winning Christian musician Michael Gungor has been taking a hit from some of his evangelical fans for saying that he has no more ability to believe that Adam and Eve were literal persons who lived 6,000 years ago or that “a flood covered all the highest mountains of the world only 4,000 years ago” than he is able “to believe in Santa Clause or to not believe in gravity.” In a recent podcast Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist’s flagship seminary in Louisville , claims that Gungor “is shifting into theological reverse, moving right back to the last decades of the 19 th century.” According to Mohler, Gungor’s ideas are the result of Protestant liberalism, “which also came over to the United States [from Germany ], infecting many denominations and seminaries.” I mean, really, Dr. Mohler? When is learning how to think a disease? What Dr. Mohler doesn’t say is that practically all mainline biblical scholarship rejects his inerrantist view of the Bible...