Throughout this summer I’ve been noticing various social media posts that attempt to describe Jesus as transcending all nationalities and ethnicities. I’m guessing the point of these posts is that Jesus ought to be acknowledged as ‘above’ our current racial tensions. In these posts, Jesus is defined as a pan-global figure and therefore beyond any debatable skin color. Any emphasis on nationality and ethnicity ought to be removed because Jesus is to be interpreted as...
Here we are isolated from one another in our homes and apartments in an effort to stem the spread of COVID-19. Naturally, there’s been lots of questions back and forth of how to stem the virus and what should remain open and what should be closed until a later date. Then comes the questions of what to do with our worship services. Do the services keep going (similar to the times of the plague in...
Everyone knows how the Christmas story goes. As Stanley Hudson vehemently asserted in the most recent episode of The Office (8.10 Christmas Wishes) regarding the sensitivity to celebrate everything but Christmas during the Holidays: I want Christmas! Just give me plain-baby-Jesus-lying-in-a-manger Christmas! When our culture boils down the Christmas event it looks like this: baby Jesus in a manger. We’ve seen live nativity scenes and some of us have small-scale versions of it around our homes. Luke 2 is on the...
We’re Getting Christmas Wrong Over the past few Christmases, I’m noticing an uptick in blog posts and essays about how Christians are “getting Christmas wrong,” that our old quaint stories about Jesus being born in an animal stable are historically implausible, and that our hymns and advent traditions are being “spoiled” by eminent historians who are at last able to redirect our wrong-headed traditions by breaking in new shafts of light from the historical insights...
One week ago I had the privilege of presenting Prof. N. T. Wright with a Festschrift (German for ‘celebration writing’), which is a sub-genre of scholarly books comprised of essays from former students, colleagues, and long-time friends. This kind of book celebrates the contributions of a particular scholar, typically on the occasion of a major birthday or retirement. Festschriften are usually intentionally broad, containing a hodgepodge of essays that contributors choose to submit in honor of a particular scholar...
For most followers of Jesus, our observance of Easter this past weekend marked a significant point in our yearly calendar that has been specifically set aside to celebrate the pinnacle of our faith, Jesus’ resurrection and life giving ministry. It’s meant to be a significant pause built into our busy schedules cementing a spiritual rhythm in our own lives, a rhythm that continues to impact us well past the holiday itself. But, if you are...
Dear Wormwood, Seeing as your Uncle Screwtape is busy after being promoted to a particular world leader, he has handed you over to me. Now, my dear Wormwood, I see that the possibility of a human war, and all that leads up to it, has enticed you. It is of vital importance to your mission that you remember your greatest weapon: a worldly contentedness. Perhaps you wonder, “But what sort of man would be content...
What constitutes an unreached people group? Generally, it applies to a group, usually related to a geographical area, in which less than 2% of the population identify as Christian. Furthermore, it is where there is no local culture evangelizing to the rest of the culture. Being deaf is not geographically contained, but it is its own unique culture, and within that culture only 2% identify as Christian. If the church is supposed to spread the...
Enough for him whom cherubim, Worship night and day, A breastful of milk, And a mangerful of hay; Enough for him whom angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel, Which adore (A Christmas Carol, Christina Rossetti) It’s hard to imagine the King of the universe, the Word of God through which everything has been made, being content with a stomach full of milk, laying in a manger of hay. For the rest of humanity,...
St. John of Damascus penned the Treatises on the Divine Images in response to iconoclasm which swept across the Byzantine Empire under Emperor Leo III. Throughout his three treatise, St. John of Damascus works to distinguish veneration from worship, and he justifies icons imaging Jesus and the saints. As a modern reader the distinction between veneration (characterized as honor) and worship appeared— at least by verbal distinctions— quite clear, and I’ve never really taken issue...
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