Experimental Theology

...trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus...the Lord out of dust had created him, had made him blood and nerve and mind, had made him to bleed and weep and think, and set him in a world of loss and fire... --Flannery O'Connor

2.26.2021

The Gospel According to The Lord of the Rings: Week 58, Arwen's Gift

Aragorn, Gandalf, Sam, and Frodo return triumphant to Gondor. Celebrations ensue, culminating in the crowning of Aragorn. Arwen has also co...

2.25.2021

The Kingdom of God is Entos Hymōn: Part 3, "Within Your Grasp"

We've covered two of the most popular translations and interpretations of entos hymōn in Luke 17.21: the kingdom of God is "among...

2.24.2021

The Kingdom of God is Entos Hymōn: Part 2, "Within You"

Again, by far the most common interpretation of entos hymōn in Luke 17.21 is "in your midst" or "among you," with the r...

2.23.2021

The Kingdom of God is Entos Hymōn: Part 1: "In Your Midst"

I want to devote three posts to Luke 17.20-21: When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “...

2.22.2021

"He Devises Means So That the Banished One Will Not Remain an Outcast": Salvation and Divine Resourcefulness

One of the issues at the heart of universal reconciliation is the question of free will. People who object to universal reconciliation often...

2.19.2021

Starting Lent in Texas

There won't be an installment about the Lord of the Rings this week. We'll pick up next week, Lord willing. The reason for the pause...

2.18.2021

On Trinity and Politics: Part 4, The Economic Trinity and the Shape of Political Engagement

So, we absorb Kilby's prophetic caution. We should not be too-quick or too-literal in drawing social, relational, or political implicati...

2.17.2021

On Trinity and Politics: Part 3, Apophatic Trinitarianism

Having set out her criticisms of social trinitarianism in "Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity,&...

2.16.2021

On Trinity and Politics: Part 2, Projecting Our Preferred Politics Onto God

I want to discuss Karen Kilby's much discussed essay "Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity&qu...

2.15.2021

On Trinity and Politics: Part 1, The Trinity Is Our Social Program

A couple of months ago, my friend and colleague Brad East put the theologian Karen Kilby on my radar screen, and I've since been explori...

2.12.2021

The Gospel According to The Lord of the Rings: Week 57, The Canticle of the Eagle

The Ring is destroyed, the battle at the Black Gate is won, Frodo and Sam are rescued from Mount Doom. But news of the great victory--the pr...

2.11.2021

How to Detox Evangelical Christianity

In my recent series I spent many posts pondering the spiritual anxieties that haunt progressive spaces, with an eye on what evangelism among...

2.10.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 9, You May Be Good But Are You Happy?

So, how do you evangelize people who are already better Christians than the Christians? People whose moral vision of themselves as good peop...

2.09.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 8, Protestantism, Disenchantment and Evangelizing the Young

A theme in this series is point made by Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age . Specifically, the Protestant Reformation played a signifi...

2.08.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 7, Can You Save People Who Are Already Saved?

I've taken us on a journey into the post-Christian landscape, following the work of Joseph Bottum, to point out that we aren't as po...

2.05.2021

The Gospel According to The Lord of the Rings: Week 56, Is Everything Sad Going to Come Untrue?

The Ring falls into the Crack of Doom with Gollum. And with that, the power of Sauron is destroyed. All the works of the Dark Lord disintegr...

2.04.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 6, Culture Wars Have Been Denominational Wars

Before turning to my interests in this series, a post to bring the Evangelicals into the story. Summarizing, the children of the mainline, i...

2.03.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 5, Self-Esteem Among the Righteous

My observation yesterday about how advertisers and marketers are selling us the message that we are good people gets to the heart of what Jo...

2.02.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 4, I Am a Good Person

It was a beer commercial that got me thinking about all this post-Protestant stuff. I didn't know what the commercial was for at first, ...

2.01.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 3, Better Christians

There was a passage in Joseph Bottum's book The Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America where a lightbulb went...

1.29.2021

The Gospel According to The Lord of the Rings: Week 55, The Author of the Story

The "deep narrative" carries Frodo and Sam all the way to the cracks of Mount Doom, toward the denouement of the story. The final ...

1.28.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 2, The Social Gospel

So why did the mainline churches decline, and how was it that their children retained the mainline concern for social consciousness and soci...

1.27.2021

Among the Post-Protestants: Part 1, A Mysticism of the Social Order

I've been reading Joseph Bottum's book An Anxious Age and wanted to devote few posts reflecting on the thesis in the book. To star...

1.26.2021

The Powers and Political Involvement

What is the place of politics in the life of the Christian? On the one hand, I have serious concerns when Christians put their faith in empi...

1.25.2021

Throw Your Pebble into the Pond

What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended th...

1.22.2021

The Gospel According to The Lord of the Rings: Week 54, Food for the Journey

Though Sam realizes that he and Frodo do not have enough food to make a return trip out of Mordor, they do have enough food for the journey ...

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