Theology
Doubting Thomases in an age of science
It takes courage to plunge our hands smack-dab into the side of the universe and reach for a God that could be real.
Have things changed for women since the time of Mary Magdalene?
In a world where we aren’t trusted, Mary’s encounter with the risen Jesus is an act of solidarity.
American hell
In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr.’s confidence in the politics of progressivism dimmed. Judgment became his refrain.
The grace of identity
We tend to think of identity as either fixed or chosen. What if it’s bestowed and revealed, relational and dynamic?
Jesus the fallible
Why would we want a higher doctrine of scripture than we have of Jesus?
The certainty summit
In 1978, a who’s who of conservative evangelical leaders met in Chicago to draft a statement on biblical inerrancy. It would change the course of church and state.
A matter of love, not certainty
In Carl Hughes’s hands, Kierkegaard helps to distinguish Luther’s desire for certainty from his appreciation for mystery.
March 16, Lent 2C (Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35)
We live with a clear-eyed hope that refuses to squint in the face of suffering.
The imitation of the Spirit
Christians are taught to practice imitatio Christi, empowered by the Holy Spirit. What if we flipped this narrative?
In Martin Marty’s classroom
One evening, Marty had the whole class out to his house. There were shelves of books that he wrote or edited and even more books by his students. I thought, I do not belong here.
March 9, Lent 1 (Psalm 91:1–2, 9–16; Romans 10:8b–13; Luke 4:1–13)
God chooses to draw near—and to draw us out of ourselves.
An ungovernable faith
By refusing to swear oaths, 16th-century Anabaptists took away the state’s primary tool for control.
Voltaire’s encounter with the crucified Christ
The Enlightenment thinker was fiercely critical of religion. But what did he mean by religion?
The legacy of “religionization”
Marianne Moyaert provides a helpful but somber history of the ways European Christians have imagined people of other faiths.
Dust and glory
Our origin in dirt can teach us humility. But what if it also bears the divine image?
How and what to think
I’m only trying to teach my religion students one of these things. At least that’s what I tell them.
God’s maternal love
I wonder if what I felt, feared, and learned as a young mother mirrors what God experiences when she tries to feed us.
Learning to see the planet as gift
At Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center nestled deep in the Cascades, I asked my students to consider their vocation in light of the Anthropocene.