Viewing entries tagged
church

"GOD SAID IT. I BELIEVE IT. THAT SETTLES IT."

4 Comments

"GOD SAID IT. I BELIEVE IT. THAT SETTLES IT."

I do think the attitude many Christians take toward scripture is unhealthy. And this seems especially true of Evangelicals. I believe our assumptions and certainties concerning what we think "the Bible says" are often getting in the way of our actually seeing Jesus in what we read. I think they even get in the way of us reading the Bible honestly, contextually, and holistically - despite the praise and reverence we lavish upon its pages. I am convinced that a lot of us are more interested in our ideas about this holy book than we are the person it's meant to be pointing us to. And I think Christian culture (and Christianese) bears witness to all these things I'm saying.

4 Comments

"THE WORD OF GOD IS LIVING AND POWERFUL..."

3 Comments

"THE WORD OF GOD IS LIVING AND POWERFUL..."

I'm going to show you something that might blow your mind.

It concerns a very popular verse in the Bible, and it certainly blew my mind - even after years of knowing (and quoting) the verse, having been raised in Christian culture. It's a simple and yet very pervasive error of interpretation. A wrong understanding which has become the dominant understanding.

3 Comments

"IT'S NOT RELIGION, IT'S A RELATIONSHIP!"

3 Comments

"IT'S NOT RELIGION, IT'S A RELATIONSHIP!"

Despite the cliché not making it any easier for many in our society and generation to swallow Christianity, people continue to feel that speaking it covers them somehow, or that it means something substantive simply because they hope it does.

Who are we kidding? 

I mean, do "religion" and "relationship" have to be so mutually exclusive? Do you have to pick one over the other? Can you not have both? Can you not be in "relationship" with God and have that inform what "religion" is and looks like for you? 

3 Comments

"YOUR WORKS ARE FILTHY RAGS."

6 Comments

"YOUR WORKS ARE FILTHY RAGS."

If you are one who knows this saying to be taken from scripture, you might be immediately defensive at the idea of me criticizing it... But let me ask you a question the people who use this phrase in sermon after sermon never ask: Is it really "scriptural" to repeat "Your works are filthy rags" in the way we do? Are you certain? Just because the phrase is in the Bible - does that mean we're using it properly or for the same reason? Is it even a correct perspective to take in holding it over the heads of others?

You may have already guessed (you're fairly clever, after all) that I don't think the answer to any of the above questions should be "yes."

6 Comments